@@ A major problem of huge data sets collected from the monitoring programs implemented by different environmental agencies in Taiwan is the lacking of rate information, i.e., physical transport, biological and chemical removal rates etc., to quantify the pollutant cycling for the budgeting task of the elements of interest. In order to gain the quantitative measures regarding scavenging, removal, and transport of pollutants in the nearshore water immediately influenced by anthropogenic activities in the coastal zone of heavily populated western Taiwan, it is necessary to include radionuclide tracer(s) to delineate rate information. The naturally occurring short-lived 234Th (ti/2=24.1 d) is an ideal tracer for the study of particle dynamics in the coastal water, in which the residence time of particulate matter is in days to weeks.