Owing to the rapid development of global economy and the over-exploitation and utilization of natural resources, the en vironmental problems are increasingly becoming more and more serious throughout the world. Thus, development of analytical methods for accurate and efficient determination of environmental elements and pollutants is vital for efficient assessment of environmental quali ty. As a highly generic and successful technique, polymeric membrane potentiometric sensors have been widely used in environmental monitoring due to their unique merits such as excellent selectivity, short response time, low cost, ease of use and suitable for portabili ty. In this review, the research progresses of these sensors on potentiometric detection of environmentally important species in environ mental waters were addressed from the perspective of different detection targets. These species include nutrients, carbonate, heavy met als, organic pollutants and pathogenic bacteria. Also, the further research directions of potentiometric sensors in environmental analysis were discussed
