The project presented here has two major elements and as a result, the objectives are twofold. The objectives of the environmental assessment component of this project are to demonstrate the utility of PSDs for broad scale assessment of bioavailable contaminants and to characterize the contaminants in agricultural systems of two major West African rivers to support future human and ecological health risk assessment, Figure 1. The objectives related to building scientific and technical capacity in African laboratories are: 1) to provide the foundation necessary for properly conducting integrated environmental monitoring, chemical analysis, and human and ecological health risk assessment; 2) to contribute to building and strengthening in-country capacities to enable local, national, and regional environmental monitoring that would generate the high quality data necessary for setting protective standards for human and environmental health; and 3) to contribute to the development of a robust model for sustainable agricultural production.