Sustainable Monitoring of Soil Pollutants and Land Management Assessment

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce a new Special Issue of the journal Sustainability entitled ‘Sustainable Monitoring of Soil Pollutants and Land Management Assessment’.

As environmental concerns continue to escalate globally, soil contamination has become a critical issue that demands more sophisticated and sustainable approaches for detection, monitoring, management, and risk assessment. The analysis of complex environmental samples such as soil, and the often low concentrations at which many pollutants are found, presents a significant challenge. This necessitates the development of advanced analytical methods for monitoring emerging soil pollutants and evaluating land management practises in agricultural and urban landscapes in an environmentally sustainable manner.

This Special Issue serves as a platform to enhance our understanding of soils, where science and technology work hand-in-hand to develop effective and sustainable methods for assessing soil quality and pollution, which is essential for finding solutions to the rehabilitation and revalorisation of contaminated soils.

Innovative and green analytical methods are encouraged, including, but not limited to, the measurement and monitoring of soil quality and pollutants in soil, as well as the detection and prevention of soil pollution. Studies focusing on the following areas of soil pollution analysis are welcome: (i) sampling strategies for improving sample representativeness; (ii) novel and advanced sample treatments; (iii) detection techniques such as chromatography (GC and HPLC), spectroscopy (UV-Vis, fluorescence, FTIR, and NMR), and hyphenated methods (ICP-MS, GC-MS, HPLC-MS, and TGA-MS) for both target and non-target analysis; and, (iv) chemometric tools. Advancements in these techniques and novel data processing approaches are encouraged, with a particular emphasis on sustainable development.

This Special Issue also explores the environmental and health impacts of pollutants and implications for land management and agricultural practises. Key themes include soil sample analyses, effectiveness in detecting trace-level contaminants, pollutant fate and transport, the monitorisation of adsorption and desorption processes, the distribution and dissipation of pollutants, enantioselective presence and distribution, soil environmental risk assessments, and soil remediation, as well as strategies for soil reuse and sustainable land management.

 Research areas may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Applications of and advancements in analytical methods;
• Technological advancements: Improvements in techniques and skills for sustainable soil environment monitoring;
• Soil sampling, treatment, monitoring, and characterisation;
• Monitoring, occurrence, and identification of inorganic and organic pollutants in soils;
• Distribution (and enantiodistribution), transport, dissipation, and interactions of pollutants in soil;
• Environmental analysis and data treatment methods;
• Modelling and detection of soil pollution;
• Soil remediation strategies;
• Practical applications for sustainable land use.

The goal of this Special Issue is to compile the latest scientific and practical knowledge on environmental chemistry with a focus on soils, as well as on the technologies used for the sustainability analysis of soils. As such, original research articles, short communications, and literature reviews are welcome.

Overall, our purpose is to disseminate knowledge on advancements in analytical methods and data analysis possibilities to identify the best technical solutions for sustainability evaluation and land management assessments.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Laura Martín-Pozo
Dr. Carmen Mejías
Dr. Julia Martín
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-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability 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 2400 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.

• soil pollution
• emerging and priority pollutants
• analytical methods
• sustainable land management
• environmental monitoring
• pollutant fate and transport
• soil quality assessment