Regulation and monitoring of pollution: Difference between revisions

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The modern environmental regulatory environment has its origins in the United States with the beginning of industrial regulations around Air and Water pollution connected to industry and mining during the 1960s and 1970s.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Oppenheimer |first=Michael |date=2003-10-01 |title=Atmospheric Pollution: History, Science, and Regulation |url=https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.1629008 |journal=Physics Today |volume=56 |issue=10 |pages=65–66 |doi=10.1063/1.1629008 |bibcode=2003PhT....56j..65J |issn=0031-9228|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Because many pollutants have transboundary impacts, the UN and other treaty bodies have been used to regulate pollutants that circulate as [[air pollution]], [[water pollution]] or [[Global waste trade|trade in wastes]]. Early international agreements were successful at addressing Global Environmental issues, such as [[Montreal Protocol]], which banned Ozone depleting chemicals in 1987, with more recent agreements focusing on broader, more widely dispersed chemicals such as [[persistent organic pollutant]]s in the [[Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants]] created in 2001, such as [[PCBs]], and the [[Kyoto Protocol]] in 1997 which initiated collaboration on addressing greenhouse gases to [[mitigate climate change]]. Governments, [[Nonprofit organization|NPOs]], research groups, and [[Citizen science|citizen scientists]] monitor pollution with an expanding list of low-cost pollution monitoring tools.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Botero-Valencia |first1=J.S. |last2=Barrantes-Toro |first2=C. |last3=Marquez-Viloria |first3=D. |last4=Pearce |first4=Joshua M. |date=December 2023 |title=Low-cost air, noise, and light pollution measuring station with wireless communication and tinyML |journal=HardwareX |language=en |volume=16 |pages=e00477 |doi=10.1016/j.ohx.2023.e00477|pmid=37822753 |pmc=10562912 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Idrees |first1=Zeba |last2=Zheng |first2=Lirong |date=2020-03-01 |title=Low cost air pollution monitoring systems: A review of protocols and enabling technologies |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452414X19300792 |journal=Journal of Industrial Information Integration |volume=17 |pages=100123 |doi=10.1016/j.jii.2019.100123 |issn=2452-414X|url-access=subscription }}</ref> While these regulations have stimulated research and policy development, low- and middle-income countries remain underrepresented and continue to face severe pollution challenges. Greater attention to regulations, policies, and scientific studies is needed to address pollution in these regions. <ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wang |first=Wei |last2=Xu |first2=Yi |last3=Zhang |first3=Shujie |last4=Xu |first4=Yongdong |last5=Xue |first5=Xiao |date=2025-07-16 |title=Bibliometric Insights into Pollution Research: Trends, Geographic Disparities, and Emerging Environmental Challenges |url=https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2515-7620/adf0cb |journal=Environmental Research Communications |doi=10.1088/2515-7620/adf0cb |issn=2515-7620}}</ref>

==Regulation and monitoring by region==