Issues of industrial environmental pollution, depletion of non-renewable minerals, poisoning of the planet’s eco-system, experiments on genetic material, destruction of unique natural objects, and many others have long disturbed scientists and practitioners around the world, highlighting the problem of ecology among the priority problems to solve. According to Rosprirodnadzor, air and environmental pollution takes a leading place among the main factors affecting the health of the population, thereby significantly reducing the quality of life of the population. According to the world health organization , 91% of the world’s population lives in areas where the quality of atmospheric air exceeds acceptable levels of pollution, continents of garbage in the world’s oceans, the ozone layer, all these are urgent problems of the world level and must be solved globally by all mankind.
According to the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of 07.05.2018 N 204 (ed.from 19.07.2018) «on national goals and strategic objectives of the development of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2024» is included in the list of national projects. Within the framework of implementing the provisions of this Decree, the state authorities of the Russian Federation are developing and implementing targeted comprehensive programs that address individual structural components to ensure the quality of life of the population . The evaluation criteria are:

 Efficient management of production and consumption waste;

Кардиналь drastic reduction of atmospheric air pollution in major industrial centers;

 Improving the quality of drinking water for the population;

 Ecological improvement of water bodies;

 Conservation of biological education

Existing interpretations of the term «ecology» in view of the many scientific approaches of the authors to the assessment of indicators and directed impact differ significantly from each other. According to Ernest Haeckel, ecology should be understood as the sum of knowledge that relates to the economy of nature: the study of the totality of animal relationships with the environment, both organic and inorganic, and, above all, their friendly or hostile relations with those animals and plants with which they directly or indirectly come into contact. Marinchenko A.V. in turn, he believes that ecology is a science that studies the relationships of organisms (individuals, populations, biocenoses, etc.) with each other and with their surrounding inorganic nature; the General laws of functioning of ecosystems of various hierarchical levels; the environment of living beings (including humans). A well-known Russian scientist, teacher and publicist S. V. Karpenkov gives his approach to the term ecology, considering it as a combination of fundamental knowledge of many natural science branches, including comprehensive knowledge of the nature and mechanisms of interaction of living and inanimate matter.
The environmental policy pursued by Russia is aimed at creating conditions and management mechanisms that meet the requirements of the time, making it more profitable for economic entities to reduce energy costs in production and, most importantly, the use of low-waste technologies that are safe for the environment, thereby ensuring the improvement of factors that directly affect the health and quality of life of the population.
In the Russian Federation, within the framework of environmental management, a large list of activities aimed at implementing the state’s policy in the field of ecology and the environment is carried out, as shown in figure 1.

Figure 1. Environmental management system in the Russian Federation

A special role in Russia’s environmental policy is played by environmental control (supervision), which is carried out by Federal Executive authorities and Executive authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation.

Figure 2. State environmental supervision and its components

Environmental certification is carried out by authorized ministries and departments that are designed to monitor the quality of the environment, ensure consumer safety, and various goods and services.
Environmental audits reflect various types of assessments designed to identify gaps in environmental compliance and implementation of management systems, along with appropriate corrective measures.

Environmental impact assessment is carried out in relation to economic and other activities that may have a direct or indirect impact on the environment.
It is worth noting the activities of the international Association for environmental impact assessment (IAIA, International Association for Impact Assessment), which has developed a methodology designed to identify the nature, intensity and degree of danger of the impact of any type of planned economic activity on the environment and public health. The use of the methodology allows making environmentally effective management decisions by identifying possible adverse impacts, assessing environmental consequences, taking into account public opinion, and developing measures to reduce and prevent impacts.
In order to prevent the negative impact of business structures on the environment, the Russian Federation conducts an environmental assessment, which checks documents that substantiate the compliance of activities with environmental requirements established by technical regulations and legislation in the field of environmental protection.
Comprehensive monitoring of the state of the environment is carried out through environmental monitoring, including components of the natural environment, natural ecological systems, processes and phenomena occurring in them, assessment and forecast of changes in the state of the environment.
In order to guarantee the preservation of a favorable environmental situation, prevent negative impacts and ensure environmental safety, state regulation in the field of environmental protection is carried out through environmental regulation. The development of standards in the field of environmental protection requires not only research to justify the standards and review the standards in the field of environmental protection, their approval and publication in accordance with the established procedure, but also timely assessment and forecasting of the environmental, social and economic consequences of the application of standards in the field of environmental protection.
In order to increase the level of safety of life and health of citizens and increase the level of safety of industrial enterprises, the so-called environmental standardization is carried out to establish environmental rules and requirements.
Within the framework of environmental certification, all industrial and manufacturing enterprises have a procedure for obtaining a passport for production and consumption waste generated as a result of their activities.
The government of the Russian Federation pays great attention to the management of environmental well-being. budget allocations for projects in the field of environmental protection and other environmental issues have been steadily increasing in the period from 2003 to 2018, as shown in Fig.3.

Figure 3. Environmental protection costs and the number of environmental crimes in the Russian Federation

Thus, it can be concluded that the data provided by the Federal state statistics service shows a significant increase in the state’s investment in environmental protection from 2003 to 2018. This indicates that the state pays great attention to the environment and annually increases its investments in factors that ensure the health of the nation, as one of the indicators of the quality of life of the population, as well as reducing environmental crime. Data on the number of environmental crimes are given for 2015.
Activities to solve environmental problems and minimize environmental crimes are carried out both at the Federal level with the help of Federal Executive authorities and with the help of Federal Executive authorities located in the relevant territories of the Russian Federation. However, we need decisive measures on the part of state and municipal authorities, a significant change in the legal framework, and more motivational and educational work with the population and representatives of business structures. There are many examples of environmental crimes associated with a low level of responsibility of individuals for unauthorized dumping of garbage, since the amount of fines for violating the requirements for working with waste is not significant. In this regard, the vast majority of natural dumps, including construction debris, are created using private car owners and compensated for the cost of one flight. It is necessary not only to tighten the responsibility for non-compliance with environmental requirements when handling waste, in particular by significantly increasing fines for violations in the field of environmental protection, but also to systematically raise the level of personal responsibility of citizens and business structures.
The statistics shown in Fig.3, are highly indicative. However, understanding the importance of the impact of the environmental situation on the quality of life of the population, it is of scientific interest to assess the respondents ‘ sociological assessment of such an indicator as «ecology and environment» in the overall assessment of their quality of life. In order to find out how the Russian population assesses the current environmental situation in the country as a factor that directly affects their quality of life, a survey was conducted of respondents with higher and incomplete higher education in Nizhny Novgorod and the Nizhny Novgorod region. Since the Nizhny Novgorod region has average values of indicators among the regions in Russia, the results of the study can be considered as average indicators of the Volga Federal district. Sociological research for the period from 2016 to 2019 is presented in Fig. 4, where the score of the indicator «Ecology and environment» corresponding to a value below 5 indicates a problem level, and values above 5 indicate a positive trend in comparison with previous values.

Figure 4. Results of a sociological survey of the population of the Nizhny Novgorod region for the period from 2016 to 2019.

According to the graph, the population’s satisfaction with the situation in our country in the field of ecology has increased to a value of 6.3 by 2019, which shows a positive trend compared to other years.

Within the framework of the national project «Ecology and environment», one of the indicators is the effective management of production and consumption waste. In this regard, the Government has developed a Program for the elimination of unauthorized landfills within the borders of cities and the elimination of the most dangerous objects of accumulated environmental damage.the planned indicators of the national project for the period from 2018 to 2024 are presented in table. 1.

Figure 5. Dynamics of planned indicators from 2018 to 2024.

Thus, we can conclude that all unauthorized landfills are planned to be eliminated from 0 to 191 PCs. This will have a very favorable impact on the nature and ecology in General in our country. As for the elimination of dangerous objects, they will also be gradually eliminated, although not at such a high rate from 31 to 75 PCs.

The study showed that in our country, national goals for solving global problems of ecology and the environment have been set and are currently being actively implemented. Carrying out preventive measures to radically improve the environmental situation is the responsibility of state and municipal authorities, which need to solve a number of issues that cover many aspects, including those discussed in this article. Russia is actively working to improve the environmental situation, the cost of environmental protection is growing and it is possible to hope that all the goals will be achieved by 2024.

It is necessary to constantly implement comprehensive preventive measures to identify environmentally hazardous areas in order to reduce the risks of deterioration of indicators that affect the quality of life of the population, a list of which is presented in figure 6.

Figure 6. Measures to prevent environmental disasters in industrial cities

Carrying out preventive measures to radically improve the environmental situation is the responsibility of state and municipal authorities, which need to solve a number of issues that cover many aspects presented in Figure 7. In this table, the authors have tried to collect a list of measures that are proposed by specialists at different levels to implement targeted environmental programs in practice.

Figure 7. A Set of proposed measures to address environmental problems

Drastic changes in this area require real and decisive actions on the part of all subjects of socio-economic relations. The proposed set of measures, as part of the implementation of one of the most important areas of Russia’s strategic development «Ecology and the environment», will ensure an increase in the quality of life of the population.