A variety of chemical compounds has been released into water from industrial and agricultural activities and urban wastes. Some of those chemicals are harmful to living organisms and are resistant to degradation, thus named persistent organic pollutants (POPs). In efforts to manage chemical pollutants such as POPs in Asia, the United Nations University (UNU) and Shimadzu Corporation established a pilot project in 1996, Environmental Monitoring and Analysis in the East Asian Region, to aid developing Asian countries with the knowledge and technology to analyze and monitor such pollutants in the environment. This book summarizes some highlights of monitoring results obtained by the project's activities for 15 years, and reports the present status of the project, touching on the future development of the project by analyzing challenges ahead of the project.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Overview and background of the project 1.1. Overview of the UNU project / Masatohi Morita -- 1.2. Global movement for monitoring POPs / Jingyi Lee and Hian Kee Lee -- 1.3. Analytical methods for monitoring POPs / Jingyi Lee and Hian Kee Lee -- 1.4. Quality assorance and quality control / Evangeline C. Santiago -- 1.5. GC-MS as an analytical instrument for POPs / Katsuhiro Nakagawa, Kouki Tanaka, Tomoaki Kondo, Yuki Sakamoto, Kyoichi Komori and atsurou Ueyanagi -- 2. monitoring results from member countries of the project -- 2.1. Study on persistent organic pollutants in the areas around Bohai Sea, North Yellow Sea and the Yangtze River Delta, China / Liang Dong, Shuangxin Shi, Lifei Zhang, Ting Zhang, Li Zhou, Lingling Li, Xiulan Zhang, Wenlong Yang and Yeru Huang -- 2.2.Pesticides, PCBs and PBDEs monitoring in India / R. Babu Rajendran, S. Krishna Kumar and S. Srimurali -- 2.3. Monitoring of POPs in the hydrosphere of Indonesia / arum Prajati, Novy Farhani and Yunesfi Syofyan -- 2.4. Monitoring of POPs in the hydrosphere of Korea / Won Joon Shim, Sang Hee Hong, Narayanan Kannan, Gi Myung Han and Jae Ryoung Oh -- 2.5. Monitoring of selected organochlorine and organophosphate pesticides in the Selangor River, Malaysia / Mustafa Ali Mohd and Emmy Dayana Ahmad -- 2.6. POPs in the selected rivers and Arabian Sea in Pakistan / Muhammad Aslam Tahir, Hifza Rasheed, Shakeel Badshah and Zakir Hussain -- 2.7. POPs in selected rivers and bays in the Philippines / Evangeline C. Santiago and Charita S. Kwan -- 2.8. Monitoring of persistent organic pollutant in Singapore / Jingyi Lee and Hian Kee Lee -- 2.9. Environmental monitoring for POPs in Thailand / Ruchaya Boonyatumanond, Areerat Jaksakul and Sunitra Thongkreang -- 2.10. Levels and trend of persistent organic pollutants in representative selected sites of Vietnam's environment / Pham Hung Viet, Le Huu Tuyen, Tran Thi Lieu and Pham Manh Hoai -- 2.11. Consolidation of major outcomes of the project for its further development / Osamu Ito and Eiko Ishikawa- Takashita.