Progress in the Earth Journal

The Earth journal (ISSN 2673-4834) is an open-access international high-quality peer review venue that promotes multi-disciplinary research over a broad spectrum of natural, social and applied sciences. The scope of this journal focuses on significant research contributions that advance the understanding of interactions among the Earth’s system components and global environmental changes. The Editorial Board invites contributions in the forms of regular research papers, communications, letters and review articles on all aspects of interactions between humans and the Earth’s environment, resources, energy, and ecosystems, as well as interactions from deep interiors to the exterior of the Earth itself.

This journal was released in December 2020 and has made significant progress to achieve its goals. It was accepted in the comprehensive and multidisciplinary Scopus citation database in January 2023, receiving its first CiteScore (2022) of 1.6 in June 2023 and ranking 104/163 in ‘Environmental Science (miscellaneous)’. Earth’s CiteScore (2023) increased to 3.3 in 2024 and it currently has a CiteScore Tracker of 4.7 (recorded in July 2024) (Figure 1) [1]. Earth continued to be indexed in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) within the Web of Science Core Collection in November 2023 and has received its first Impact Factor of 2.1 in June 2024, ranking 127/253 in ‘Geosciences, Multidisciplinary’ [2].

Since its inception, statistics show that the Earth journal is on a path to establish itself as a successful and respected platform for scientific publications. This journal received a total of 561 submissions from 2020 to 2023; among them, 184 papers were successfully accepted and published after peer review. Moreover, the total rejection rate of this journal is 67.2% (Figure 2). The majority of papers published in Earth are articles (79%), followed by review papers (9.3%) and opinions, perspectives and technical notes (11.7%).

After nearly two and half years since its creation, we are excited to find that Earth has continuously shown positive trends, as demonstrated by the number of views its papers have generated (Figure 3). Importantly, publications in the Earth journal have also reached broad interests worldwide. Figure 4 shows the country of origin of papers published during 2023.

The average time taken for the first decision to be made after submission is about 25 days. Once manuscripts are accepted for publication, Earth publishes papers within a short time frame (Figure 5).

As Chief Editor, I am extremely grateful to the Editorial Board, which has significantly contributed to the success of our journal. Moreover, I am especially thankful to the Editorial staff for their support, professionalism and diligence in handling all aspects of the editorial process. Looking to the future, the Earth journal will continue to focus on maintaining healthy and efficient publication records of high-quality papers to advance the understanding of our Earth and its sustainability.