SKLECRA was established in CRAES in October 2011 with the approval of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China. It is the first state key laboratory established in the institution under MEE. SKLECRA tightly follows the research themes of environmental criteria and risk assessment. It is primarily guided by the state strategy aims and key scientific needs. SKLECRA aims to improve the original fundamental and applied research capability, to build an internationally influential research team and to establish an open talents resource centre for the field of environmental criteria and risk assessment. Fundamental and applied research includes:regional/basin-level environmental quality evolution and theories of regionalization of environmental characteristics and environmental criteria and environmental risk assessment theory and technology, which provides concrete technical support to the state environmental quality standard revision and environment management activities. At present, SKLECRA has developed as a world- renowned laboratory focusing on environmental criteria.