Treatment of Contamination of Coastal Areas

Dear Colleagues,

Coastal areas, including coastal lagoons and estuaries, represent key systems that are often subjected to anthropogenic pressure. They embody delicate environments that need intervention and the adoption of treatment measures in order to protect them from contamination and restore their typical key role in the environment.

Coasts are transition zones in the transport of anthropogenic contaminants from land sources to sediments and coastal waters. Ecological gradients emerge as the driving forces shaping the behavior and fate of contaminants.

Microorganisms are involved in biogeochemical cycles, and evidence a high plasticity in adapting to different contaminants, in many cases developing mechanisms to cope with contaminants. Innovative treatment processes such as bioremediation using autochthonous microorganisms could offer insights for a non-invasive, environment-respecting, reasonable-costs technology to treat several coastal contaminants.

Authors are invited to submit original research and review articles focused on these aspects.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Organic and inorganic contaminants of anthropogenic origin in coastal areas, including crude oil, n-alkanes, PAHs, PCBs, microplastics, pharmaceuticals as antibiotics, heavy metals, and metalloids; the use of bacteria as bioindicators of contaminant dispersion; and treatment processes for contaminant removal, including biological methods such as bioremediation;
• Treatment of coastal plains contaminants derived from agricultural activities, including nitrate dispersions, organic carbon, phosphate, and inorganic nitrogen;
• Seaweeds, algae, and organic matter as coastal contaminants: possible removal and possible valorization of these substrata;
• Recent trends and developments in methods for the analysis of microbial contaminants (i.e., bacteria, fungi, viruses) in coastal areas, including metagenomic approaches;
• Approaches including aspects of circular economy for the treatment of coastal area contaminants;
• The use of remote sensing, such as satellite imagery, to reveal river flows and plumes, land–sea interactions and water quality, together with the detection of anthropogenic impacts such as sewage discharges, even hidden ones, which can facilitate contamination treatments;
• Evidencing geographic patterns of antibiotic resistance and antibiotic resistomes in coastal sediments, across ecological gradients and terrestrial disturbances as major determinative forces in shaping antibiotic resistomes, which can represent useful approaches allowing coastal contaminant treatments.

Dr. Milva Pepi
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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• coastal contaminants
• organic contamination
• inorganic contaminants
• coastal pathogens
• treatment methods
• remote sensing
• ecological gradients
• resistome