Potentially Toxic Elements and Agrochemicals: Prevalence, Health Implications, and Sustainable Management of Agroecosystems

Dear Colleagues,

Potentially toxic elements (PTE) (e.g., As, Cd, Pb, Cd, Cr, Cr, Hg, etc.) are not only threatening water and soil bodies but are also a big issue in agroecosystem. Vegetables and cereal crops grown in contaminated regions are one of the greatest threats to food security and human health, as they can readily accumulate elevated levels (beyond recommended limits) in their edible and inedible (fodder) parts. Similarly, pesticides are widely used in producing food to control pests such as insects, rodents, weeds, bacteria, mold, and fungi, which pose serious risks to human health worldwide; this is despite the fact that organic farming is increasing and some countries have applied pesticide regulations and monitoring programs. Accumulated pesticide residues in food products have been associated with a broad variety of human health hazards. Therefore, this issue of food contamination has become a global concern. This is more pronounced in the Asian context, particularly in developing countries, due to the excessive/unsystematic application of pesticides, fertilizers, sewage, and irrigation with wastewater or polluted groundwater, along with rapid urbanization, industrialization, hazardous waste dumping, etc. Irrigation with contaminated groundwater or surface water receiving agrichemical runoff are another major factor in crop composition. Long-term use of contaminated irrigation water and soil amendments leads to high accumulation of PTE in soils, which can be subsequently transferred to the edible and fodder parts of crops via various uptake and translocation mechanisms. Heavy metals enter the plant system through soil or via the atmosphere and can accumulate, affecting physiological processes. However, the accumulation of PTE in food crops is affected by several physico-chemical properties of the soil, environmetnal conditions, soil type, climatic conditions, and crop/plant species. A better understanding of the regulation mechanisms of crop PTE and pesticide accumulation is a prerequisite to improving the safety of the food chain. The main purpose of this Special Issue is to provide the international scientific community with detailed knowledge of the distribution and accumulation of PTE and pesticides in agricultural soil and different crops in several countries around the world and state-of-the-art remediation approaches to manage crop and soil pollution. In addition, this issue will pay special attention to the use of modern analytical techniques for analysis of PTE and pesticides in crops.

The potential topics for this project include, but are not limited to, the following areas, with strict requirements on the quality of research and methodological rigor, practical innovation, and novelty in the research:

(1) The accumulation and partitioning of PTE in soils, vegetable, and cereal crops;

(2) Soil–crop transfer mechanisms of PTE;

(3) Chemical fertilizer and impact on soil and crops;

(4) Impact of sewage/other contaminated irrigated water on vegetables/crops;

(5) Remediation approaches to manage soil and crop metal pollution;

(6) Climate change impact on metal accumulation in crops;

(7) Effects of pesticide use on crop production and crop contamination;

(8) Detection methods of residual pesticides and PTE in food crops;

(9) Sustainable agriculture and management strategies;

(10) Health risk of pesticides and PTE-contaminated vegetable/cereal crops;

(11) Sustainability in crop production;

(12) Eco-friendly/green technology for PTE remediation in soil–crop systems;

(13) Application of phytoremediation in agriculture;

(14) Sustainable biowaste management in crop production.

You are invited to submit manuscripts on these topics for consideration  (the editors also welcome articles on other related topics, which are still closely related to these themes). However, the submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere. The Guest Editors will select high-quality research for blind peer review. Reviewers will be selected from researchers who are active in the field and whose works are present in international databases.

Dr. Prafulla Kumar Sahoo
Prof. Dr. Mike A. Powell
Guest Editors

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