Emerging Contaminants in Soil and Water: Sources, Behaviour, and Environmental and Human Health Risks

Dear Colleagues,

Emerging contaminants (ECs) refer to a group of natural or anthropogenic origin chemicals of natural or anthropogenic origin that are often not monitored and regulated under current environmental laws. There are growing concerns about the lack of environmental health and safety data on these chemicals. ECs include a range of chemical compounds, from estrogen-like compounds, flame retardants, detergents, microplastics, nanomaterials, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, surfactants, personal care products, and some industrial chemicals, among others. With the advancements in analytical techniques, more and more emerging contaminants have been identified and added to the list. ECs are usually recalcitrant and bioaccumulable and can have lethal effects on humans and wildlife endocrine systems, even in trace quantities. Thus, ECs may have considerable adverse impacts on ecosystem safety and public health.

ECs are increasingly being released into the soil and water compartments of the environment, both intentionally and unintentionally, from point and non-point sources depending on their pattern of use and mode of application. Unfortunately, the principal sinks of ECs in the environment include agricultural soils, urban surface runoff, and discharge from sewage treatment plants. Once released into the environment, they undergo various physico-chemical and biological transformation processes upon interaction with biotic and abiotic components. The main transformation processes are biodegradation, redox reactions, hydrolysis, photolysis, etc. Although these transformation processes reduce contaminant loadings, some of the transformed products are more toxic than the parent compound, raising concerns about their presence in the environment. Emerging contaminants and their transformed product distribution in aquatic and terrestrial environments ultimately affect human health. Moreover, these contaminants enter the food chain via the consumption of food plants grown in contaminated soils, mainly through the soil to plant uptake and translocation. Thus, it is crucial to understand the environmental behavior, bioavailability, and ultimate toxicity of ECs to assess their ecological risks.

This Special Issue aims to share the latest scientific knowledge on the environmental release sources of a broad range of emerging contaminants, their transformation processes in the natural environment under the influence of both biotic and abiotic factors, the behavior of transformed products, and the assessment of human health risks.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Release sources, distribution, and transport of emerging contaminants;
• Analytical techniques for the detection and quantification of ECs;
• Physical, chemical, and biological transformation in the soil and water system;
• Impact of ECs and their transformed products on the ecosystem;
• Toxicity studies;
• Food chain transfer through the soil–plant system ;
• Environmental and human health risk assessment;
• Soil ecotoxicology;
• Policy supports for the environmental.

Dr. Balal Yousaf
Dr. Qumber Abbas
Dr. Muhammad Ubaid Ali
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. Soil Systems is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly 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 1800 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.

• emerging contaminants (ECs)
• source identification of ECs
• environmental transformations
• soil–plant transfer
• human health risks
• bioavailability
• bioaccumulation
• trophic level transfer