The Special Monitoring & 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 Region (NOWPAP) which was adopted in the First NOWPAP Intergovernmental Meeting (IGM) (Seoul, September 1994). NOWPAP is one of the Regional Seas Programme of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Four countries-Japan, People's Republic of China, Republic of Korea, and Russian Federation- participate the Programme.

CEARAC was founded in 1999 and is hosted by the Northwest Pacific Region Environmental Cooperation Center (NPEC), which was established in 1998 in Toyama, Japan, under the auspices of the Ministry of the Environment. Finalization of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with UNEP was made in July 2002, which provides the overall framework for cooperation between UNEP and NPEC.

Following the Resolution of the 7th IGM (Vladivostok, Russia, March 2002), which allows NOWPAP to evolve toward a RAC-based rather than an Activity-based structure, the CEARAC Focal Points Meeting (FPM) was established in order to promote smooth and effective implementation of special monitoring and assessment of the marine and coastal environment. The First CEARAC FPM (Toyama, Japan, February 2003) approved the establishment of two Working Groups of experts (WG) under CEARAC; WG3 on monitoring and assessment of Harmful Algal Blooms (HAB) and WG4 on Remote Sensing of the marine and coastal environment.

Structural arrangements being completed, CEARAC is stepping up to being fully functional and operational seeking for coordination of regional activities for monitoring and assessment of the state of the marine and coastal environment.