ScanEx R&D Center together with the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “East Siberian R&D Institute of Geology and Mineral Resources” published the second edition of the reference guide “Power of federal and local governmental authorities to perform environmental monitoring and to promote nature protection activities based on Earth observation from space”. 
The second edition had to be issues due to changes in Russian legislation in 2006-2007. Revisions in Water Code and Forestry Code of the Russian Federation were taken into account in the new edition, as well as new town planning, agricultural, mapping activities were added and the list of imaging equipment providing for regular, near real-time and independent data for environmental monitoring and planning was extended. Some regulatory documents enacted in support of the above codes and laws contain direct mandatory requirements to use Earth remote sensing data. The current edition covers a much bigger number of regulations – 107 documents (as opposed to 56 in previous edition).
The guide contains a list of authorities of the federal and local governmental agencies in the issues of nature use and environment protection according to regulatory documents for environmental monitoring and nature protection activities (as of February 1, 2008).
It will be used to prepare requests for RS data when creating departmental and territorial programs for environmental and nature use space monitoring.
A variety of tasks that can be resolved using RS data is determined by the composition of imaging targets and the capacities of imaging equipment and RS data reception and processing assets. 
A list of tasks in sphere of assessing natural resources and environment based on RS data is fully represented in the new edition of “Thematic tasks classifier to assess natural resources and environment based on remote sensing data” (approved by the Department of Science and Information Systems of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation from March 23, 2001).
New classifier edition innovations:
1) names of areas and task sections are matching the Federal Law #7-ФЗ from January 1, 2002 on “Environmental Protection”;
2) names of themes and tasks are matching the active legislation in sphere of nature use and environmental protection, in particular with the new editions of Water, Forestry and Town Planning Codes of the Russian Federation;
3) names of themes and tasks take into account powers of federal and local governmental authorities to perform environmental monitoring and to promote nature protection activities as recorded in relevant regulatory acts;
4) new thematic tasks in oceans and seas hydrology, water bio-resources, soil, fauna, atmospheric air, agriculture, town planning activities and transportation were added to the new edition;
5) the edition is updated according to possibilities of contemporary imaging systems of Earth remote sensing.
The current classifier edition includes 318 tasks, in particular 101 tasks on geology and nature use, 61 – on surface water, 7 – on fauna and water bio-resources, 15 – on soil, 14 – on nonforest vegetation, 36 – on forests, 16 – on atmospheric air, 8 – on landscapes, 30 – on man-made objects, 23 – on region development management. The last paragraph of the new edition contains the reference to numbers of tasks from previous edition that included only 209 tasks.
The classifier is meant to be used when preparing requests for RS data, planning and coordination of activities to create and develop departmental, regional and municipal RS programs.
The tasks quoted in the classifier can be resolved by federal and local governmental agencies by exercising their authorities. Thematic tasks solutions, quoted in the classifier, can be done both in single-time mode and during monitoring – at the stages of survey, assessment, forecasting and development of recommendations for executive decision-making.
