Research projects dealing with transition in the former centrally plan
ned economies of Eastern and Central Europe face great difficulties of
data availability. Much data are not available and much of what are a
vailable are poorly documented or unreliable. This paper describes som
e of the problems of data availability in the context of environmental
research in Bulgaria. It describes current efforts to upgrade nationa
l level environmental monitoring capabilities, and argues for the need
for the development of locally sensitive systems of data collection a
nd analysis.