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Global mercury emissions from man-made sources have come down by 30 percent between 1990 and 2010. A new study  challenges long-term assumptions regarding mercury emissions.

There are large environmental health risks to all living beings with the mercury in the environment. "For years, mercury researchers have been unable to explain the apparent conundrum between declining air concentrations and rising emission estimates," Yanxu Zhang, lead author of the study, said in a news release.

"Our work is the first detailed, mechanistic analysis to explain the declining atmospheric mercury trend."

While studying the mercury emissions in North America and Europe, scientists found that mercury was removed from a number of commercial products, even as regulations were imposed on coal-fired power plants. Mercury was also removed from burning coal.

Today, natural gas instead of coal is used, reducing mercury emissions, according to scienceworldreport.

"The local and regional benefits from reduced mercury emissions are realized to a much greater degree than we ever thought previously," said Elsie Sunderland, coauthor of the study. "This is great news for focused efforts on reducing exposure of fish, wildlife and humans to toxic mercury."

However, even as global mercury emissions have come down in North America and Europe between 1990 and 2010, they have risen in Asia.

The study was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).