Emerging and Legacy Contaminants in Soil and Water Systems: Pathways, Monitoring, Characterization, and Treatment
A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Water Quality and Contamination".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 March 2026 | Viewed by 41
Special Issue Editors
Interests: environmental nanotechnology; emerging contaminants; water treatment; soil reme-diation; waste management; LC-HRMS; non-target analysis
Interests: best management practices; food–energy–water nexus; water conservation; regenera-tive agriculture; precision agriculture; smart irrigation; soil health assessment; soil physics; nutrient management; crop physiology; crop model; climate change; agricul-tural pollution control (N and P); constructed wetlands; machine learning; UAV
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: soil functions and ecosystem services; soil structure/subsurface flow paths evolution and mass/energy transport in the vadose zone; coupling soil water processes and bio-geochemical cycles
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
As essential environmental media and the material foundations for life on our planet, soil and water are vital components of Earth's natural systems. However, rapid industrialization and urbanization have introduced a diverse array of pollutants into these systems. Alongside legacy contaminants such as heavy metals and excess nutrients, urban environments are increasingly producing contaminants of increasing concern, including pharmaceuticals, microplastics, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), pesticides, herbicides, endocrine-disrupting chemicals, personal care products, and tire-derived chemicals such as 6PPD and its transformation product 6PPD-Q. These pollutants are introduced through various sources and pathways, including discharge from wastewater treatment plants, surface water and stormwater runoff, and the land application of sludge/biosolids and compost. From these sources, contaminants can infiltrate into the subsurface and eventually reach groundwater systems. Over time, this continuum of transport may result in the contamination of drinking water supplies, posing serious risks to both ecological integrity and human health.
This Special Issue aims to assemble cutting-edge research on both emerging and legacy contaminants across interconnected soil and water systems—including surface water, groundwater, wastewater, stormwater, and drinking water. Our goal is to present a comprehensive overview of contaminant pathways—from their sources and environmental transport to their monitoring and characterization, and innovative technological solutions for their treatment and remediation.
We welcome high-quality original research articles and critical reviews focusing on, but not limited to, the following focus areas:
- Pathways and Transport:
- Studies on spatial and temporal distribution, as well as the accumulation of contaminants in soil and water systems.
- Identification of point and non-point sources contributing to contamination.
- Investigation of contaminant fate and transport processes, including mobility, persistence, and transfer across environmental media.
- Monitoring:
- Development and application of field-based and real-time monitoring technologies for detecting contaminants.
- Integration of geospatial tools such as remote sensing, GIS, UAVs and GeoAI for mapping contamination hotspots and tracking pollutant transport.
- Use of sensor networks and automated systems to enable continuous, high-resolution monitoring
- Characterization and Analysis:
- Target and non-target analyses using advanced instrumentation such as LC-HRMS to identify known and unknown contaminants.
- Investigation of contaminant speciation and bioavailability under different environmental conditions.
- Treatment and Remediation:
- Evaluation and optimization of conventional and advanced treatment technologies, including adsorption, membrane filtration, photocatalysis, constructed wetlands, and bioreactors.
- Development of novel materials and engineered systems—such as functionalized sorbents, nanomaterials, photocatalytic compounds, and biosensors—for enhanced detection and removal of contaminants.
We look forward to receiving your submissions to this Special Issue and advancing the collective understanding of emerging and legacy contaminants.
Dr. Jinsheng Huang
Prof. Dr. Yuchuan Fan
Dr. Xi Zhang
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-blind 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.
Keywords
- emerging contaminants
- legacy contaminants
- fate and transport
- point and non-point sources
- non-target screening
- wastewater treatment
- sorption
- photocatalysis
- nanomaterials
- constructed wetlands
- GIS
- remote sensing
- real-time monitoring
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