INTEGRATED ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN ASIA: A CRITICAL REVIEW OF WATER, CONTAMINANTS, WASTE, BIODIVERSITY, MONITORING, AND GOVERNANCE
Keywords:
environmental quality, water security, emerging contaminants, ecological risk assessment, circular waste management, biodiversity monitoring, science–policy interfaceAbstract
Environmental-quality challenges in Asia increasingly span connected water, chemical, waste, biodiversity, and governance systems. This critical review examines a bounded corpus of 57 Scopus records published during 2020–2026, of which 54 were substantively relevant, using Leung et al. (2020) as a conceptual baseline. The synthesis focuses on aquatic exposure, emerging contaminants and mixtures, waste and plastics, monitoring, biodiversity, remediation, and environmental governance. Across the corpus, evidence indicates methodological advances in analytical detection, effect-based assessment, native-species testing, spatial-temporal monitoring, and risk-based priority setting. However, the strength and geographical coverage of evidence are uneven, and many records provide descriptive or conceptual rather than directly comparable empirical evidence. The review therefore distinguishes corpus-supported findings from interpretive propositions. A six-function source-to-outcome-to-decision framework is presented as a conceptual synthesis of recurring evidence needs: pressure mapping, exposure characterization, biological-effect diagnosis, ecosystem-service and equity assessment, intervention appraisal, and adaptive governance. The framework is not presented as empirically validated; rather, it identifies testable links that require comparative application and field evaluation. The review concludes that stronger integration between monitoring, ecological interpretation, intervention assessment, and accountable decision processes is a priority for future environmental-quality research in Asian settings.
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