Aims and scope

Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology is a journal where researchers can publish full-length articles describing the source, transport, fate and effects of environmental contaminants. The journal provides a place for the publication of timely, detailed and definitive scientific studies that provide insight into contaminants in the environment, with multidisciplinary contributions from the fields of analytical chemistry, biochemistry, biology, ecology, environmental science and toxicology. The journal attaches importance to manuscripts that advance our understanding of contaminants of concern in air, water, sediments and biota, the fate and behavior of these contaminants in the environment, and effects on the health of plants and animals. All manuscripts should have strong contextual linkages to the environment. Submissions that present an extension or confirmation of topics that have already been extensively studied or are not considered to be of interest to an international readership will not be considered.

The journal does not typically consider submissions dealing with contaminant monitoring at a geographically limited scale, occupational exposure and effects in humans, dissipation of chemicals in soils, removals of contaminants in wastewater, or toxicity testing of chemicals that have been well documented and regulated. However, submissions addressing one of these topics may be considered in cases where there is a strong link to the receiving environment, the development of new techniques, or presents a unique data set from a part of the world that has been heretofore poorly investigated.

The journal will also consider submissions describing techniques for remediation of contaminants in environmental matrixes (e.g., soil, water, air), with a particular emphasis on low-cost solutions that do not require advanced treatment technologies. Manuscripts describing remediation technologies tested at bench-scale only, without validating applications to actual contaminated environments will not normally be considered.

Authors submitting manuscripts must consider the following in order to assure that their manuscript will be sent out for review:

·        Modeling studies must link model outputs with empirical data to calibrate or validate the model.
·      Studies of particulate matter and/or gaseous pollutants in the atmosphere will not be considered unless data are also provided for trace contaminants (e.g., metals, PAHs, etc.).  

·        Toxicity studies describing the effects of contaminants of emerging concern must include analytical data that verifies the exposure concentrations or doses. For toxicity studies with agents at nanoscale or microscale (e.g. nanoparticles, microplastics), the form and concentration of the agent in the exposure medium must be described. 

·        Toxicology studies that are human-focused or use rodent models exclusively for human risk analysis and epidemiology will not be considered.

·        Manuscripts reporting concentrations of chemical contaminants in environmental matrices must report QA/QC procedures, limits of detection and quantitation and the operating parameters for analytical instrumentation.

·        Reports of new analytical methods must provide information on precision and accuracy, recoveries (for extraction or pre-concentration techniques), limits of detection and quantitation, and the operating parameters used with the analytical instrumentation.
·    Manuscripts describing novel “green chemistry” methods will be given priority.
·    Manuscripts that describe analytical methods that do not significantly improve upon an existing method will not be considered.

·  Authors are encouraged to place data or study details in Supplementary Information that are not essential to an understanding of the study but may be of interest to some segments of the scientific community.

·  Authors that are not fluent in English are encouraged to have their manuscript edited by a native English speaker or by a professional editing firm. Manuscripts with poor grammar and syntax will not be sent out for review.

·  When submitting manuscripts, authors must disclose in their cover letter to the Editor in Chief whether they have included text, illustrations and/or figures in the manuscript that were generated through Artificial Intelligence applications.

All manuscripts will be peer-reviewed by at least two experts in the field. Reviewers will be asked to consider study design, quality assurance, statistics applied, novelty, relevance, and impact to the wider scientific community. AECT will not accept short communications, but where appropriate, such submissions may be referred to our companion journal, the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology (BECT). AECT will also not accept review articles, but where appropriate, such submissions will be referred to our companion journal, Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology Authors may directly contact the Editor-in-Chief if they wish to clarify which journal (i.e. AECT, BECT, RECT) is most suited for their submission.