Monitoring and Assessment of Mercury Pollution

Dear Colleagues,

After more than forty years since the first outbreak of mercury (Hg) poisoning, the issue still raises worldwide debate. Despite the increasing efforts to reduce Hg pollution, human activity still produces a massive amount of Hg: only in 2018, anthropogenic emission exceeded 2 million kg of Hg, representing 30% of the total Hg entering the atmosphere yearly.

Mercury is one of the most naturally occurring toxic substances in the Earth’s crust and it exists in the environment in several forms, each of them with specific characteristics, properties, and environmental effects. The assessment of mercury pollution involves evaluating various sources, including industrial emissions, artisanal mining, and natural processes, which release both elemental and organic forms of mercury into the environment. Effective monitoring strategies involve ground-based measurements and remote sensing technologies to track atmospheric, aquatic, and soil mercury levels. Monitoring Hg pollution is fundamental to understanding its dispersion, transformation, and bioaccumulation throughout terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. The occurrence of mercury in the environment poses risks to human populations, particularly through the consumption of contaminated fish and water, with neurological and developmental health impacts. The clinical effects of human exposure are numerous and differ based on the Hg forms. This scenario is indeed rapidly transforming due to the effects of climate change, contributing to drastic changes in the environmental conditions affecting Hg dispersion in the environment. Therefore, it is necessary to continuously update of our general knowledge on Hg geochemistry.

The detection and the quantification of the different Hg species is thus of primary importance to predict the fate of this pollutant and its potential effects on the environment and humans.

In this Special Issue, we kindly invite you to contribute papers dealing with the issue of Hg pollution, its monitoring and quantification. The wide range of this topic could include both research and review papers for possible publication in this issue.

Dr. Pilario Costagliola
Dr. Francesco Ciani
Dr. Alessia Nannoni
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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. Toxics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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.

• mercury
• risk assessment
• environmental contamination
• mercury speciation and quantification
• environmental monitoring
• assessment methods