Process and Data-Driven Models of Pollutant Transport and Fate in Ecosystems

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue welcomes original research, review articles, and methods papers focused on process-based modeling of pollutant transport, transformation, and fate across terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and their compartments. Emphasis will be on mechanistic, data-driven, and hybrid process models, model–data integration, upscaling from laboratory to field and watershed scales, uncertainty, sensitivity, and multi-objective optimization analyses, model validations, and novel applications for risk assessment and management. Studies addressing the contamination of food webs and models supporting the design and assessment of remediation strategies, including thermal treatment of wastes, are also encouraged. The Special Issue aims to bridge advances in process understanding with practical modeling approaches that inform monitoring, remediation, and policy decisions.

Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Mechanistic and data-driven predictive models for emerging contaminants (PFAS, pharmaceuticals, microplastics);
• Coupled hydrodynamic–biogeochemical models in river, lake, estuarine, and coastal systems;
• Modeling the uptake, bioaccumulation, and contamination of food webs;
• Model–data assimilation and inverse modeling for contaminant source identification;
• Sorption, desorption, and partitioning process parameterization and upscaling;
• Role of biofilms and microbial transformation in pollutant fate;
• Thermal and chemical transformation pathways and their representation in models, including process models for thermal treatment systems;
• Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis for model-informed decision making;
• Model intercomparisons, benchmarking and best-practice guidance;
• Tools and workflows for reproducible environmental process modelling.

Dr. Fatih Evrendilek
Dr. Gülsün Akdemir Evrendilek
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Processes 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 2400 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.

• pollutant transport
• contaminant fate
• process-based modeling
• data-driven modeling
• reactive transport
• watershed modelling
• sediment–water interactions
• bioavailability
• food web contamination
• uncertainty quantification
• model-data fusion
• PFAS/emerging contaminants
• biogeochemical cycling
• upscaling
• thermal treatment