Pollution and Remediation in Mining Areas

Dear Colleagues,

Mining and smelting activities are the cornerstone for a model society, providing hugely important resources—for example, energy, metals and other valuable materials—for societal development around the world. However, these activities may produce some waste, such as tailings, waste residues, wastewater, and exhaust fumes that contain large amounts of pollutants, such as toxic heavy metals, which may result in severe pollution in the surrounding areas, impacting these areas at a large-scale (such as the whole river catchment or large areas of agriculture soil downstream) and posing a risk to the environment and human health if they are not treated appropriately.

To achieve sustainable development in society, governments and the public have paid great attention to mining and smelting activities, and the consequent pollution impact. Thus, it is necessary to monitor pollution status, evaluate the hazards of pollutants, assess their risk to ecology/environmental factors and human health, and develop remediation methods and restoration strategies for mining and smelting, as well as impacted areas.

This Special Issue aims to explore state-of-the-art perspectives on these issues, and attempts to provide a comprehensive overview. Original research articles and reviews are both welcome. Potential research topics include, but are not limited to:

1. Pollutant monitoring and characteristics, as well as source diagnosis in the areas impacted by mining and smelting, considering different environmental matrixes (soil, water, sediment, air, biota, etc.);
2. Processes and mechanisms of transport and transformation for pollutants during mining and smelting activities and impact on the surrounding areas;
3. Hazard characterization of pollutants, and assessment of their risks to ecology, the environment and human health;
4. Development and application of remediation methods, and restoration strategies in these areas;
5. Treatment and disposal of hazardous wastes from mining and smelting areas;
6. Corresponding strategies and practices for pollution management in these areas.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in IJERPH.

Dr. Wei Chen
Prof. Dr. Jiaquan Zhang
Dr. Peng Zeng
Dr. Qin Zhang
Prof. Dr. Jie Luo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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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.

• ecological/environmental/human health risk assessment
• source diagnosis
• transport and transformation
• heavy metals
• organic pollutants
• bioavailability
• ecological restoration
• (bio-)remediation
• treatment and disposal of hazardous wastes
• pollution management