Off to a flying start

When we renamed our journal a year ago it was with considerable enthusiasm, but also with some trepidation whether the environmental science community would embrace a journal dedicated to the study of environmental processes and impacts. We needn't have worried, judging from the quantity and especially the quality of the papers received over the last year. The manuscripts are coming in from all over the world, with authors of submitted papers hailing from well over fifty countries. While maintaining our reputation as the journal of record for the introduction and detailed characterisation of environmental measurement and data interpretation techniques, Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts is attracting high profile papers in exposure science, environmental modelling, atmospheric chemistry, and environmental technology.

The topics covered in the more than 200 papers published last year run the gamut from the development of a novel and low-cost measurement device for atmospheric fine particles (A low-cost particle counter as a realtime fine-particle mass monitor, Northcross et al., DOI: 10.1039/c2em30568b), to the discovery of environmentally persistent free radicals at contaminated sites (Assessment of environmentally persistent free radicals in soils and sediments from three Superfund sites, dela Cruz et al., DOI: 10.1039/c3em00428g), and the detailed understanding of mercury reduction in aerosols (Atmospheric photolytic reduction of Hg(II) in dry aerosols, Tong et al., DOI: 10.1039/c3em00249g). Over the past twelve months Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts has published insightful reviews on issues as diverse as human exposure to aluminum (Human exposure to aluminium, Exley, DOI: 10.1039/c3em00374d), the effect of nanoparticles on wastewater treatment and anaerobic digestion (Impact of metallic and metal oxide nanoparticles on wastewater treatment and anaerobic digestion, Yang et al., DOI: 10.1039/c2em30655g) and the cyanotoxin cylindrospermopsin (A review on cylindrospermopsin: the global occurrence, detection, toxicity and degradation of a potent cyanotoxin, de la Cruz et al., DOI: 10.1039/c3em00353a).

Our very first issue was focussed on “anthropogenic nanoparticles in the environment”, and in 2014 you can again look forward to exciting themed issues of Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts. We will continue our highly successful series of issues on Emerging Investigators, highlighting the best work of some of the tremendous talent that is starting to make their impact felt in the environmental sciences. We are also in the process of editing two themed issues on advances in the field of aquatic photochemistry and the passive sampling of contaminants. Stay tuned for some truly exciting collections of papers that showcase research and technology development at the leading edge of these two fields.

A lot of the credit for the auspicious first year of Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts has to go to Associate Editors Stephen Mudge and Liang-Hong Guo and the dedicated staff at the Royal Society of Chemistry, who also assured a seamless transition to the new journal name. I can personally attest that time to publication at Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts is exceptionally fast.

With the proliferation of new journals and the rapid growth of existing ones, I worry increasingly about the sustainability of scientific peer review. Identifying qualified reviewers willing to take on the task of evaluating submitted manuscript is a growing challenge. I would therefore like to extend an emphatic “Thank You” to all of the referees of manuscripts that had been submitted to Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts last year. Without your invaluable volunteer commitment to quality through peer review, we could not hope to aspire to building one of the premier periodicals in environmental science. Of course, I also thank our authors and subscribers for helping us in this endeavour. On behalf of the editorial board, I am counting on your continued support.

Frank Wania

Chair, Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts Editorial Board

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