The environmental changes occurring throughout the world have become the focus of global scientific research. The spectroscopic environmental monitoring technology can be used to obtain information about pollutants based on the optical absorption, emission, scattering, and atmospheric radiation transmission principles by establishing a characteristic factor fingerprint spectrum database and a quantitative analysis algorithm. Further, this technology can be applied to dynamically monitor the air quality as well as the fixed and mobile pollutant sources. The environmental spectroscopy monitoring technology, which can perform real-time and rapid monitoring at high sensitivities and large scales, has attracted considerable research attention. To date, several principal environmental monitoring technologies and systems have been established. These mainly include investigations and applications of the lidar technology, differential optical absorption spectroscopy, tunable diode laser spectroscopy, and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. Based on these technologies and systems, the acquisition, transmission and sharing of monitoring information provides basic environmental information for the whole society, which promotes the development of the environmental quality assessment systems based on the monitoring data and provides the scientific basis for environmental management in China.