Diagnostic Timescale Methods for the Aquatic Environment: Current Challenges, Recent Improvements, and Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Timescale diagnoses (e.g., age, residence/exposure time, inverse of reaction rate) are powerful tools helping to analyze and understand passive and reactive transport processes taking place in the aquatic environment (subsurface water, rivers, lakes, estuaries, seas, etc.). The aforementioned timescales, commonly derived from numerical modelling or from measurements, apply to water, natural and artificial tracers, and chemical and biological species. Regarding their integrative properties, timescale methods are potentially holistic, in that they include all of the available pieces of information about the underlying (reactive) transport processes taking place in environmental fluid flows.

This Special Issue aims at presenting recent advances in tracer and timescale methods. All types of contributions will be welcome, in particular those focusing on novel methodological developments (even if they are still being formulated) and applications aimed at addressing ecological problems. Numerical methods using Eulerian or Lagrangian approaches will be considered, as well as techniques based on remotely sensed or in situ data. We will seek a balance between contributions from natural sciences and engineering, as well as between numerical, observational and theoretical approaches.

Manuscripts dealing with issues falling outside the realm of the aquatic environment will also be considered provided they draw lessons that are of interest to the core of this Special Issue.

It is noteworthy that the publisher (MDPI) is willing to grant no less than ten publication fee waivers for this Special Issue. Potential authors are kindly invited to contact one of the guest editors, thereby outlining their article project and providing a tentative submission date.

This Special Issue is intended to be a follow-up to a recently completed Water Special Issue entitled “Tracer and Timescale Methods for Passive and Reactive Transport in Fluid Flows” (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/water/special_issues/Fluid_Flows).

Prof. Dr. Eric Deleersnijder
Dr. Edward S. Gross
Prof. Dr. Zhe Liu
Dr. Lisa V. Lucas
Prof. Dr. Jian Shen
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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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. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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.