The aquatic environment of large cities in Asia is faced with many pollution problems as a result of the rapid economic development of the past decades. Emerging pollutants are any synthetic or naturally-occurring chemicals that are not monitored or regulated in the environment and that have known or suspected adverse impacts on ecosystem and human health. The project will develop a dataset of the emerging pollutants including persistent organic pollutants (POP), micro/macroplastics, antibiotics and cyanotoxins in the aquatic ecosystems of seven large cities (Hanoi, HoChiMinh, Beijing, Singapore, Seoul, Bangkok, Phnom Penh) in East and Southeast Asia. The developed dataset of emerging pollutants in the region, will then be used to evaluate the potential risks to ecosystem and human health in order to propose better management practices for their disposal in large cities. The results will provide a scientific basis for the improvement of regional scale management of water resources. Studies on emerging pollutants are urgently needed for the definition of the conditions necessary for sustainable development in East and Southeast Asia.