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Water Quality Studies: Assessing the Presence of Nutrients and Pollutants, 2nd Edition

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Water Quality and Contamination".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 July 2026 | Viewed by 815

Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Environmental Engineering Technology, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Gdańsk University of Technology, 11/12 Narutowicza St., 80-233 Gdańsk, Poland
Interests: arctic; climate change; river; lakes; creeks; glaciers; sediments; transboundary pollutants; trace elements; persistent organic pollutants
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Guest Editor
Department of Hydrology, Faculty of Oceanography and Geography, University of Gdańsk, 4 Bażyńskiego Street, 80-306 Gdańsk, Poland
Interests: maritime Antarctica; freshwater; sediments; snow; anthropogenic influence; persistent organic pollutants; long-range atmospheric transport; environmental fate; cryosphere degradation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Studies on water quality are particularly important for understanding the present and future environmental challenges arising from intensifying human activities and ongoing climate change. Environmental pollutants come from both natural and anthropogenic sources. Significant amounts of pollutants are emitted into the environment in urbanized and industrialized areas of the Northern and Southern hemispheres. Transboundary pollutants are also found in areas lacking local sources, including remote regions such as the Arctic and Antarctica. To fully understand the environmental changes around us and the associated risks, it is of paramount importance to develop an interdisciplinary approach to study both spatial and temporal (long- and short-term) changes in pollutant levels in surface waters. In this research method, special attention should be paid not only to the direct impact of human activities but also to changes in meteorological conditions that can trigger a hydrochemical response in surface waters.

This Special Issue aims to publish papers on water quality studies that incorporate environmental data and explain related factors and processes that may contribute to changes in pollutant levels. Therefore, we encourage authors to submit cross-disciplinary articles on observations of environmental change based on chemical analyses of various types of surface water (i.e., snow, precipitation, runoff water, rivers, streams, lakes, and marine), groundwater, and artificial reservoirs in different regions of the world.

Dr. Sara Lehmann-Konera
Dr. Joanna Potapowicz
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. 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

  • transboundary pollutants
  • persistent compounds
  • bioaccumulative chemicals
  • toxic contaminants
  • trace elements
  • major ions
  • organic compounds
  • catchment
  • freshwater
  • runoff and discharge
  • climate change impact

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

19 pages, 3436 KB  
Article
Long-Term Multivariate Dynamics of Water Quality in the Chicago and Des Plaines River Watersheds: Evidence from Principal Component Analysis (2001–2025)
by Sender Kyeremeh and Sanoar Rahman
Water 2026, 18(13), 1563; https://doi.org/10.3390/w18131563 - 26 Jun 2026
Viewed by 494
Abstract
Urban freshwater systems are subject to complex, interacting anthropogenic stressors that collectively alter hydrological, chemical, and ecological dynamics. This study examines the temporal evolution of water quality across the Chicago River Watershed (CRW) and the Des Plaines River Watershed (DPRW) over a 25-year [...] Read more.
Urban freshwater systems are subject to complex, interacting anthropogenic stressors that collectively alter hydrological, chemical, and ecological dynamics. This study examines the temporal evolution of water quality across the Chicago River Watershed (CRW) and the Des Plaines River Watershed (DPRW) over a 25-year monitoring period (2001–2025). Long-term data from 51 stations were analyzed across ten water quality parameters. Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied annually to characterize shifts in multivariate water quality structure and identify dominant gradients governing system behavior. During the early phase (2001–2012), three principal components described the system, reflecting semi-independent stressor gradients. Beginning in 2013, a marked structural simplification emerged where a single dominant component accounted for approximately 78–84% of total annual variance, indicating strong parameter coupling and consolidation of system variability into a unified response gradient. This transition coincided with measurable declines in total phosphorus, total dissolved solids, and nitrogen. Nevertheless, the persistence of a single dominant gradient underscores the continued influence of urban environmental controls and tightly coupled pollutant pathways. These findings affirm the value of long-term, multivariate monitoring for characterizing urban water quality dynamics and informing adaptive watershed management. Full article
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