Emerging contaminants has been a regional and global environmental issue as they are discovered in the environment, even in polar areas. The idea of Environmental Specimen Banking triggered a revolution in the community of Environmental Sciences in the past five decades. Sweden, Canada, Japan, United States, Germany and some other developed countries have set up ESB. Such ESBs not only help to analyze the status of the environment pollution, but also enable retrospective trend analysis. Now China is developing a national Environmental Specimen Bank because we believe the rapid economic development may be achieved at the expense of environmental change.

It is important for us – the scientific communities to unite to cope with regional and global environmental issues, especially emerging contaminants.