At present, scientists and decision-makers in the Asia-Pacific region must rely on limited information to understand and quantify the critical linkages between mercury emissions, environmental response, and potential human health concerns. Successful design, implementation, and assessment of solutions to the mercury pollution problem require standardized and comprehensive long-term information on trends and environmental concentrations—information that is currently not available. As a primary mercury source region with limited mercury information and data, Asia is a particularly important region to further develop monitoring capacity.
A mercury monitoring program focused on tracking mercury in air, water, land, fish, and wildlife would allow scientists and decision makers to assess progress in addressing the mercury problem. Currently, such a monitoring program does not exist on a global scale, although there are promising efforts underway and very successful regional monitoring programs that can serve as models for how to monitor collaboratively to produce high quality data. The work to develop an Asia-Pacific mercury monitoring network to track mercury in air and rainwater is a very timely and an important contribution to broader regional and global monitoring efforts.