Transport, Transformation and Green Remediation of Pollutants in Soil–Water Environments

Dear Colleagues,

Soil–water environments, including vadose zones, groundwater, surface water, and their interfaces, constitute the primary pathway through which pollutants enter food chains and threaten ecosystems and human health. Rapid industrialization and intensive agriculture have released heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants, PFAS, microplastics, and emerging contaminants such as antibiotics into these interconnected systems. Among these inputs, non-point source pollution from fertilization, livestock farming, and urban stormwater runoff has become a dominant contributor to eutrophication and to the widespread occurrence of pesticides and veterinary pharmaceuticals in receiving waters. Understanding how pollutants are transported, transformed, and retained across soil–water interfaces is fundamental to accurate risk assessment and effective remediation. Significant knowledge gaps remain regarding multi-interface processes, including colloid-facilitated transport, redox-driven transformation, biodegradation coupled with hydrological dynamics, and the long-term fate of transformation products. Meanwhile, conventional remediation technologies face challenges of high energy consumption and secondary pollution, creating an urgent need for green, low-carbon, and resource-recovery-oriented strategies.

This Special Issue aims to present and disseminate the most recent advances related to the transport, transformation, and green remediation of pollutants in soil–water environments. We invite contributions addressing mechanistic understanding, monitoring and modeling, and sustainable control technologies at scales ranging from laboratory columns to catchments.

Topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to:

• Fate and transport of emerging contaminants (PFAS, microplastics, antibiotic resistance genes) in soil–water systems;
• Non-point source pollution: generation, mobilization, and delivery of nutrients, pesticides, and veterinary pharmaceuticals from agricultural lands and urban catchments;
• Riparian buffers, constructed wetlands, and other edge-of-field measures for intercepting diffuse pollution;
• Biogeochemical transformation, speciation, and bioavailability of heavy metals and organic pollutants at soil–water interfaces;
• Colloid- and natural organic matter-mediated transport in porous media;
• Coupled physical-chemical-biological processes in hyporheic zones and wetland systems;
• Green remediation technologies, including phytoremediation, bioremediation, biochar-based materials, and nature-based solutions;
• Low-energy in situ methods such as electrokinetic and photocatalytic remediation;
• Reactive transport modeling and machine-learning-assisted prediction of pollutant behavior;
• Life-cycle assessment and sustainability evaluation of remediation and pollution control projects.

Both original research articles and comprehensive reviews are welcome. All manuscripts will undergo standard peer review and should be submitted online through the journal’s submission system by selecting this Special Issue.

Dr. Lei Wang
Dr. Rongting Ji
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Toxics 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 2600 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.