Dear Colleagues,

Sixty years ago, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, inaugurating a major milestone in environmental activism. Carson reliably and skillfully translated for the general public the scientific findings of that time on the deleterious effects on human and environmental health of synthetic pesticides such as DDT. As a result of commotion and pressure from different environmental protection entities, some chemicals were banned, and regulatory frameworks were created for the release, monitoring, and safety of products used for pest control.

Although Silent Spring’s subject has been around for six decades, it is still very topical due to the growing number of little-known contaminants detected in environmental samples. Advances in synthetic chemistry and materials engineering have provided incredible solutions for areas such as the agriculture, construction, and textile industries and medicine. However, they have also unintentionally introduced substances and materials into the environment, with emphasis on aquatic compartments that are the final destination of all contaminants. This diverse group of contaminants has been described as contaminants of emerging concern or emerging contaminants.

Emerging contaminants are defined as synthetic or naturally occurring chemicals or any microorganisms that are not commonly monitored in the environment but have the potential to enter the environment and cause known or supposed adverse ecological and/or human health effects. They are pharmaceuticals, pesticides, industrial chemicals, surfactants, nanomaterials, micro(nano)plastics, and personal care products that are regularly found in groundwater, surface water, municipal wastewater, drinking water, and food sources.

The threat of emerging contaminants lies in the fact that the environmental and human toxicology of most of these compounds have not yet been studied. In this sense, ecotoxicity testing through exposure of aquatic (vertebrates, invertebrates and unicellular) species to those contaminants has historically been the main approach to obtain exposure-effect data. However, new approach methodologies aligned with Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century vision by US NRC, as well as advances in computational toxicology, high-throughput techniques, in vitro to in vivo extrapolation, and QSAR and AOP models have also been widely used for environmental risk assessment from a plethora of poorly studied contaminants against aquatic organisms.

This Special Issue will focus on the investigation of ecotoxicological effects of emerging contaminants on aquatic species using in silico, in vitro and/or in vivo approaches. The proposal of new methods or tests to investigate the effects of these contaminants on aquatic biota will also be considered in this Special Issue.

Dr. Davi Farias
Dr. Luís Felix
Prof. Dr. Thiago Lopes Rocha
Guest Editors

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• adverse outcome pathways
• aquatic organisms
• contaminants of emerging concern
• ecotoxicity testing
• QSAR
• personal care products
• pharmaceuticals
• nanomaterials
• pesticides
• predictive toxicology