Monitoring and Assessment of Environmental Quality in Coastal Ecosystems, 4th Edition

Dear Colleagues,

Coastal ecosystems are dynamic, complex, and often fragile transition environments between land and oceans. They are exclusive habitats for a broad range of living organisms, functioning as biodiversity havens and providing several important ecological services linking terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments.

Humans living in coastal zones have been strongly dependent on these ecosystems as sources of food, physical protection against storms and the advancing sea, and a range of human activities that generate economic income (e.g., tourism and water sports). The intensification of human activities in coastal areas in recent decades and the current global climatic changes and coastal erosion processes have had detrimental impacts on these environments: organic and inorganic pollution; marine anthropogenic litter; destruction, fragmentation, and modification of habitats for multiple purposes; overexploitation of natural resources; introduction of invasive species; and loss of biodiversity. Maintaining the structural and functional integrity of these environments as well as recovering an ecological balance or mitigating disturbances in systems under the influence of such stressors are complex tasks, only achievable through the implementation of monitoring programs and environmental quality assessments.

In this Special Issue, we invite colleagues to contribute original research papers and review articles on all aspects of coastal ecosystems’ environmental quality monitoring and assessment. The monitoring and assessment methods may focus solely on abiotic compartments, such as water and sediments, or include biotic compartments of relevance from all taxonomic origins. The tools used may range across various ecological levels of organization, from the individual to the ecosystem, including, for example, environmental quality and environmental indexes, ecotoxicology and biomarkers, bioindicators and biomonitors, population and community indexes and indicators, and ecosystem responses and services. Innovative and more traditional monitoring and assessment methods are both welcome.

The publications in the first and second volumes of this Special Issue, which we believe may be of interest to you, can be found at the following links: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/environments/special_issues/Environmental_Quality; https://www.mdpi.com/journal/environments/special_issues/Environmental_Ecosystems; https://www.mdpi.com/journal/environments/special_issues/IR6CT88409.

Dr. Sílvia C. Gonçalves
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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