Introduction. The national programs focus on solving social and economic problems. At the same time, the hygienic characteristics of the urban environment that determine living conditions are not fully included in the documents regulating the formation of the urban environment. Materials and methods. The paper provides a content analysis of the current normative and methodological literature recommended for use in assessing the “formation of a comfortable urban environment” in Russian localities.Results. Currently, existing methods for assessing the “comfort of the urban environment” (methodology for forming the urban environment quality index dated March 23, 2019, No. 510-R) and “quality of the urban living environment” (methodology for assessing the quality of the urban living environment dated September 9, 2013, 371) are not suitable for determining the development strategy of the country’s territories because the assessment procedure does not include key hygienic indices of the comfort of the natural environment and living conditions of the population, which allow citizens to meet housing needs and ensure a high quality of life in General, including the birth of healthy children, maintaining the health of the adult population and preventing premature mortality.Conclusion. The urban environment integrates a variety of inter-level relations of various types (economic, social, cultural, etc.). It is intended to study it as a multi-level structure, for this purpose, it is necessary to use a hierarchical approach. To implement this approach, it is recommended to take into account the indices of various groups that affect the comfort of the urban environment and are directly related to the hygienic characteristics of the territory: A-climatogeographic; B-demographic; C-social; D-economic; E - urban planning; F - indices of transport infrastructure; G-environmental quality indices.

Annotation. The results of a study on the water quality, bottom sediments and coastal soil based on the level of anthropogenic pollution by heavy metal compounds and organic polutants are presented. The most commonly used integral and complex indicators used to assess the environmental safety of territories have been calculated. A comparative analysis, using the Shannon Biodiversity Index, highlighted the total pollution index (Zc) as the most informative, among those analysed, in terms of the impact of anthropogenic pollution on biota. The results established a methodology for assessing the environmental safety of territories that needs to be improved. By using the Maximum Permissible Exceedance (MPE) indicator, objective data will be available when determining the negative impact of pollution of natural environments on the state of ecosystems.

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