The rapidly increasing interest on environmental problems during last years, has pushed the scientific community towards the development of detection systems, suitable for monitoring ecological equilibrium over large territory areas, which can promptly reveal the presence of hazardous species. The use of laser transmitters in remote sensing apparata (lidar systems), offers the advantage to choose in a wide range of emitted wavelengths, from UV to far-IR, in order to obtain real time measurements. Atmospheric measurements of pollutant gaseous species can be performed using the DIAL (Differential Absorption Lidar) technique, where two wavelengths either in or out of coincidence with the absorption lines of an investigated pollutant are emitted. Horizontal and vertical range resolved concentration profiles can be retrieved. The LIF (Laser Induced Fluorescence) technique offers the possibility to monitor terrestrial or marine targets, In fact these signals, emitted by specific molecules and analyzed in spectral or time domain, contain information about the presence of a certain species and its physico-chemical status. Laboratory and field experiments can be performed on terrestrial and marine vegetation with different purposes, which include the remote recognition of different species, the study of air and soil pollution effects. In particular the fluorescence quantum yield, measured with the double pulse excitation occurring in pump-and-probe experiments, seems to be a good indicator for the occurrence of reversible or unreversible stresses. Measurements of water quality can be performed as well, with the same system by directly detecting the blue fluorescence of the suspended or dissolved organic pollutants (oils, DOM, TSM, Chl, etc.). The Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) can be applied to remote and local analysis of heavy atoms in both gaseous and condensed phases.

The ENEA laser remote sensing laboratory has developed and applied new technologies for environmental monitoring. The team has built several laser based system for remote sensing atmospheric (richiamo 1)marine (richiamo 2) and terrestrial constituents (richiamo 3).