The Special Monitoring and Coastal Environmental Assessment Regional Activity Centre (CEARAC) is one of the four Regional Activity Centres (RACs) to coordinate activities relevant to specific components of the Action Plan for the Protection, Management and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the Northwest Pacific Action Plan (NOWPAP). Since its inception in 2002, CEARAC has been mainly working on monitoring and assessing harmful algal blooms (under Working Group 3) and application of remote sensing techniques to the study on the marine and coastal environment (Working Group 4).