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Land
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Soil Contamination—Ecological Environment Risk Assessment and Remediation: 2nd Edition
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Soil Contamination—Ecological Environment Risk Assessment and Remediation: 2nd Edition

A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X). This special issue belongs to the section "Land, Soil and Water".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2027 | Viewed by 1817

Editors

Dr. Magdalena Myszura-Dymek

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Agrobioengineering, Institute of Soil Science, Environment Engineering and Management, University of Life Sciences in Lublin, ul. St. Leszczynskiego 7, 20-069 Lublin, Poland
Interests: soil science; soil chemistry; biological and biochemical indicators of soil quality; soil degradation, reclamation of industrial and mining areas; remediation; green technologies
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Grażyna Żukowska

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Agrobioengineering, Institute of Soil Science, Environment Engineering and Management, University of Life Sciences in Lublin, ul. St. Leszczynskiego 7, 20-069 Lublin, Poland
Interests: soil science; soil chemistry; biological and biochemical indicators of soil quality; soil degradation; reclamation of industrial and mining areas; remediation; green technologies
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce a Special Issue of Land entitled “Soil Contamination—Ecological Environment Risk Assessment and Remediation: 2nd Edition”.

Population growth and the resulting growing demand for food, industrial, energy, and transport systems, as well as their emissions and waste, are accelerating environmental degradation on a global scale.

Climate change and environmental pollution, particularly soil pollution, are one of humanity’s major global challenges. Soil pollution limits the ability of soils to provide key ecosystem services, including food security, clean water availability, and soil biodiversity protection, and complicates the achievement of many of the ONZ Sustainable Development Goals. The main sources of pollution are industrial processes and mining, poor waste management, unsustainable agricultural practices, industrial accidents and disasters, and armed conflicts. Soils bear the greatest burden of environmental pollution; at the same time, they can filter, buffer, retain, and degrade pollutants. Soil pollution is a global problem with local and regional impacts and transboundary effects. There is an urgent need to analyze the current state of knowledge on the fate of main soil contaminants in the soil environment and assess the ecological threat (risk).

The goal of this Special Issue is to collect papers (original research articles and review papers) that present the latest knowledge on the global problems of soil contamination, innovative solutions for soil contamination and ecological risk assessment, and remediation and sustainable management of areas with different types and levels of contamination.

This Special Issue will welcome manuscripts that link the following themes:

  • Soil pollution - characteristics of pollutants and their sources;
  • Assessment of the degree of soil pollution;
  • The fate of pollutants in the soil;
  • Environmental, economic, and social effects of soil pollution;
  • Ecological environment risk;
  • Indicators and methods of environmental risk assessment;
  • Soil remediation technologies;
  • Management of contaminated soils;
  • International and national legal regulations on soil pollution.

We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.

Dr. Magdalena Myszura-Dymek
Prof. Dr. Grażyna Żukowska
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Land is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • soil pollution
  • fate of pollutants in soil
  • effects of soil pollution
  • methods of assessing soil pollution
  • ecological environment risk
  • indicators and methods of assessing ecological environment risk
  • soil remediation technologies
  • legal regulations on soil pollution

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Related Special Issue

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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20 pages, 3286 KB  
Article
Geochemical Assessment of Heavy Metal Contamination in North Riyadh Soils: Pollution Indices and Multivariate Source Apportionment
by Abdelbaset S. El-Sorogy, Saad S. Alarifi, Khaled Al-Kahtany, Mohamed S. Shokr, Meshal Alqurashi, Omar Almohammad and Abdulrahman Alsahhaf
Land 2026, 15(8), 1482; https://doi.org/10.3390/land15081482 - 16 Aug 2026
Viewed by 140
Abstract
This study provides baseline information for environmental assessment in North Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It assessed the concentrations of eight heavy metals, namely cobalt (Co), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), vanadium (V), and zinc (Zn), in 28 surface soil [...] Read more.
This study provides baseline information for environmental assessment in North Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It assessed the concentrations of eight heavy metals, namely cobalt (Co), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), vanadium (V), and zinc (Zn), in 28 surface soil samples collected across the area. Pollution status was evaluated using the contamination factor (CF), geoaccumulation index (Igeo), enrichment factor (EF), pollution load index (PLI), and degree of contamination (DC), while Pearson correlation, principal component analysis (PCA), and standardized hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) were applied to identify the possible sources of these metals. Iron was the most abundant element (mean 8482.14 mg kg−1), consistent with its role as a major crustal constituent. Co, Cr, Fe, Ni, and V showed low contamination (CF < 1) and a predominantly geogenic origin, reflected in strong inter-element correlations and a dominant rotated principal component explaining 54.8% of the total variance; Cu, Pb, and, in particular, Zn departed from this pattern, loading together on a distinct secondary component (32.1% of variance) and showing localized enrichment at a small number of sites. None of the 28 samples exceeded the pollution threshold for PLI (all < 1) or DC (all < 8), indicating that the soils of North Riyadh remain overall unpolluted with respect to these eight metals. These findings provide an early geochemical baseline for the district and identify Cu–Pb–Zn enrichment near construction and traffic corridors. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Contamination—Ecological Environment Risk Assessment and Remediation: 2nd Edition)
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25 pages, 4962 KB  
Article
Spatial Distribution and Source Apportionment of Potentially Toxic Elements in Soils Across a Full Lead–Zinc Mining–Beneficiation–Smelting–Tailings System
by Yifei Shi, Chen Sun, Yongfang Zhou, Teng Teng, Weiwei Hu and Yi Wang
Land 2026, 15(6), 1029; https://doi.org/10.3390/land15061029 - 11 Jun 2026
Viewed by 357
Abstract
Potentially toxic elements (PTE) pollution from lead–zinc (Pb–Zn) production poses significant ecological risks, requiring systematic assessment across the industrial chain. This study investigated soil, surface water, and sediments near a Pb–Zn mining area, integrating pollution indices (Igeo, NIPI, RI) with human [...] Read more.
Potentially toxic elements (PTE) pollution from lead–zinc (Pb–Zn) production poses significant ecological risks, requiring systematic assessment across the industrial chain. This study investigated soil, surface water, and sediments near a Pb–Zn mining area, integrating pollution indices (Igeo, NIPI, RI) with human health risk models. A spatial analysis framework was established by combining proportional symbol mapping and Thiessen polygons to analyze contamination patterns under small-sample conditions. Results showed a clear pollution hierarchy: smelting > beneficiation > tailings ≈ mining. Smelting and beneficiation zones exhibited multi-element pollution; Hazard Index (HI) exceedance probabilities reached 89% and 95%, respectively, while carcinogenic risk (CR) exceedance approached 100% across all zones. Cd was the dominant ecological risk factor, particularly in mining and tailings zones, where risk was mainly driven by a single element. Source apportionment identified two industrial groups—smelting-related (Pb, Hg, Zn, Se) and ore-associated (As, Cd, Cu, Sb)—whereas Cr, Ni, Co, and V were mainly derived from natural sources. These results indicate the need for coordinated management of beneficiation and smelting processes and provide a spatial analysis approach for small-sample assessment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Contamination—Ecological Environment Risk Assessment and Remediation: 2nd Edition)
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17 pages, 2009 KB  
Article
Integrated Assessment of Soil Environmental Capacity for Heavy Metals in a Selenium-Rich Geological Agricultural Region: A Novel Framework Combining Source Apportionment and Dynamic Modeling
by Daokun Chen, Dongxiang Jiang, Liang Wang, Xinbin Li, Boyuan Chen, Zhanbin Wang and Ke Yang
Land 2026, 15(6), 912; https://doi.org/10.3390/land15060912 - 25 May 2026
Viewed by 344
Abstract
Addressing capacity assessment uncertainties in high-geological-background areas, this study develops a source-oriented risk assessment framework integrating spatial interpolation, source apportionment, and dynamic capacity modeling. Analysis of 39 surface soil samples (As, Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, Pb, Se, pH) from Ankang Basin, China, [...] Read more.
Addressing capacity assessment uncertainties in high-geological-background areas, this study develops a source-oriented risk assessment framework integrating spatial interpolation, source apportionment, and dynamic capacity modeling. Analysis of 39 surface soil samples (As, Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, Pb, Se, pH) from Ankang Basin, China, reveals: Two heavy metal sources were quantitatively identified via APCS-MLR. Natural sources (71.94%) dominate, contributing Se, Cd, Cu, Zn, and Ni, with Cd primarily geogenic. Anthropogenic sources (28.06%) from industrial, transportation, and agricultural activities contribute Cr, As, Pb, and Ni. Static capacity assessment identifies Cd as the primary limiting element (average capacity 0.22). Dynamic model predictions indicate that the 20-year dynamic capacity of all elements is only 14–20% of the theoretical static capacity (Qi), representing 16–47% of the current existing capacity, and will approach dynamic equilibrium after 40 years. Source-oriented capacity indices reveal natural sources pose the highest comprehensive risk (SPI = 0.916), mainly driving Cd capacity stress (SPICd = 0.34). Anthropogenic sources remain safe (SPI > 1.255) but warrant Pb monitoring. This framework supports precise management of selenium-rich lands, shifting strategies from emission control to avoiding high-risk geological units. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Contamination—Ecological Environment Risk Assessment and Remediation: 2nd Edition)
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Review

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33 pages, 9999 KB  
Review
Hidden Carbon: How Polymers Influence Soil Organic Matter and Carbon Cycling
by Alvyra Slepetiene, Kateryna Fastovetska, Aida Skersiene, Jurgita Ceseviciene, Irmantas Parasotas, Olgirda Belova, Lucian Dinca and Gabriel Murariu
Land 2026, 15(5), 716; https://doi.org/10.3390/land15050716 - 24 Apr 2026
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 521
Abstract
Anthropogenic polymers have become an increasingly important class of emerging contaminants in terrestrial ecosystems. While extensive research has focused on microplastics in aquatic environments, their interactions with soil systems and particularly with soil organic matter (SOM) remain insufficiently understood. Soil represents a major [...] Read more.
Anthropogenic polymers have become an increasingly important class of emerging contaminants in terrestrial ecosystems. While extensive research has focused on microplastics in aquatic environments, their interactions with soil systems and particularly with soil organic matter (SOM) remain insufficiently understood. Soil represents a major environmental sink for polymer residues originating from agricultural practices, urban activities, and atmospheric deposition. Accordingly, associations between polymers and SOM, including humic substances, may significantly influence the retention, mobility, and transformation of carbon in soil systems. This review synthesizes current knowledge on the influence of synthetic polymers on soil organic matter dynamics. A bibliometric and qualitative literature analysis based on publications indexed in Web of Science and Scopus from 1979 to 2025 was conducted to identify major research trends and knowledge gaps. The results indicate that polymer particles can alter soil structure, microbial activity, and sorption processes, thereby affecting the stability and cycling of soil organic carbon. Interactions between polymer surfaces and humic substances may modify aggregation processes and influence the persistence and mobility of both polymers and organic carbon compounds. Despite the rapid growth of research on microplastics, studies addressing polymer–SOM interactions remain limited and methodologically heterogeneous. Greater integration between polymer research, soil science, and land use studies is necessary to better understand the implications of polymer contamination for soil quality and carbon cycling. The findings highlight the need for standardized analytical approaches and interdisciplinary research frameworks to assess the long-term effects of polymers in soil ecosystems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Contamination—Ecological Environment Risk Assessment and Remediation: 2nd Edition)
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