Soil Contamination and Ecotoxicity

Dear Colleagues,

An increasing world’s population of people and a rising demand for agricultural products and other goods provided by industry lead to an increased pressure on soils in every region. One of the main threat affecting soils on the local and global scale is pollution influencing soil functions and ecosystem services, causing deleterious effects towards soil organisms and substantially affecting human health.

Pollutants are released to the environment from many sources, such as accidental leaching from landfill or oil spills, the excessive usage of fertilizers and pesticides, irrigation with untreated water, application of sewage sludge, atmospheric deposition, especially in incomplete combustion of fossil fuels and biomass, transportation, and nuclear accidents. Pollutants in soils usually create a mixture inducing a different response from that of single substances which ranging from innocuous to toxic. For many emerging pollutants, the effect on living organisms, their dissipation rates, aging processes, degradation pathways and formation of by-products which may influence their toxicity are still unknown. In many countries, soil quality criteria of pollutant concentrations are supported by risk assessment tools. Such approaches apply various field investigations, laboratory studies, and models enabling prediction of the extent to which the soil pollution poses a real risk to the environment and human health.

This Special Issue provides information for better management of polluted soils and implementation of economically effective remediation techniques in order to ensure the living organisms safe and healthy conditions.

Dr. Bożena Smreczak
Prof. Dr. Alicja Kicinska
Prof. Dr. Eleonora Wcisło
Guest Editors

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