ABSTRACT
For thousands of years, men and women have observed, measured and monitored their physical environment. The ancient Egyptians monitored the water levels in the River Nile because of their importance to agriculture; the ancient Greeks also had interests in monitoring the atmosphere, as shown by the Tower of the Winds in Athens; and Arab scientists, such as Ibn Khaldun and Ibn Battuta, contributed much to environmental observation (Izzi Dien 2000), including developing instruments to measure the environment. In many countries, regular meteorological observations started in the 19th century, at about the same time that serious mapping and measurement of the terrain began. Both meteorological monitoring and topographic mapping were stimulated by military requirements, often a stimulus for environmental information collection.
