Buyun Du
Hongbiao Cui
Chunhao Gu
Zhu Li
Jun Zhou- 1College of Environmental Ecology, Jiangsu Open University, Nanjing, China
- 2Department of Environmental, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, MA, United States
- 3School of Earth and Environment, Anhui University of Science and Technology, Huainan, China
- 4Environmental Soil Chemistry Group, Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, Delaware Environmental Institute, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, United States
- 5Key Laboratory of Soil Environment and Pollution Remediation, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, China
Editorial on the Research Topic
Soil and sediment pollution, processes and remediation, volume II
Since industrialization, anthropogenic activities have generated a large amount of toxic organic and inorganic pollutants that have been emitted to the surface environment, posing several risks to ecological environment and public health (Song et al., 2017; Du et al., 2020). Industrial activities produce large numbers of pollutants (e.g., heavy metals, excess nutrient microelements, pesticides, antibiotics, environmental hormones, antibiotics resistance genes, pathogens, and microplastics) that reach soil and sediment via waste discharge, mining activities, abusive use of fertilizer and pesticides, and wastewater irrigation, atmospheric transport, and other disposal pathways (Liu et al., 2019; Zhou et al., 2020; Han et al., 2021; Liu et al., 2022). These pollutants can accumulate in soils and sediments, posing significant threats to food security. A lot of industrial sites are abandoned due to weak environmental management (insufficient management, legislation, and enforcement). The pollution process, migration, transformation, degradation, and accumulation of toxic pollutants in soils and sediments are not well understood and remediation are required if these soils are reused.
Most importantly, tracing the sources of pollutants is critical to understand their pollution levels and fates, which are effectively control soil and sediment pollution. There are many method has been used, such as concentration gradient, matrix models, relative enrichment factors, and isotopes. Recently, many remediation methods including physical, chemical, biological, and combined methods were proposed and adopted for the purpose of solving the problems of soil and sediment pollution (Song et al., 2017; Du et al., 2022; Khanam et al., 2022). The remediation method is usually dependent upon the pollutant characters and levels in soil and sediment. Through remediation, prime land in established locations can be reused (e.g., agricultural, residential, and commercial land), thereby lowering the pressure on green land. Therefore, studies on the biogeochemical processes of soil and sediment pollution, control, and remediation are urgently needed. Since soil and sediment remediation followed by redevelopment prevent degradation of the environment, it is a topic of enormous public interest.
In this Research Topic, we wish to include studies on pollutants such as heavy metals, excess nutrient microelements, pesticides, antibiotics, environmental hormones, antibiotics resistance genes, pathogens, and microplastics. This Research Topic covers the following themes: 1) Sources, migration, and transformation of pollutants in soil and sediment; 2) Plant and microbe response and environmental effect in polluted soils; 3) Biogeochemistry and processes of pollutants between the atmosphere, organisms, water, and soil/sediment systems; 4) Safe use and risk assessment and control of contaminated soil and sediment; 5) Mitigation and remediation technologies; and 6) Environmental modeling of the fate and biogeochemical process of pollutants.
This collection of articles features critical interdisciplinary questions related to the environmental pollution, processes, and remediation of soil and sediment in understudied areas. It approaches a series of key questions surrounding the organic and inorganic pollutant detections, sources, accumulation characters, health risk assessments, dynamics with water, atmosphere, and microorganism, and remediation techniques. The authors of contributing papers are uniquely placed to debate the theme of soil and sediment pollution, processes and remediation. The contributors come from a range of disciplines, including Science, Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and these papers can solve real-world, urgent challenges that affect a range of societies. Of special interest is the discussion on the new method of electrostatic separation and differential scanning calorimetry for microplastic analysis in river sediments.
We hope this Special Issue can illuminate the opportunities and challenges involved in rethinking environmental pollution and processes of soil and sediment and the need for a multidisciplinary approach to fully remediate the contaminated soil and sediment. This has important implications for public health, policy guidelines, and practical solutions. To this end, we encourage more research to advance the topics of the papers contained herein, including but not limited to 1) Effectively identify the sources; 2) understand the mechanism of pollutant fate and biogeochemistry processes; 3) efficiently remove pollutants or stabilize pollutants; 4) develop more environmental friendly remediation measures and engineering technologies; 5) investigate the influences of global climate change on the fate, transformation, and transportation of the pollutants.
Author contributions
All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication.
Funding
This research was provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42207277 and 42177234) and Key Scientific Research and Development Projects of Jiangxi Province (20194ABC28010).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher’s note
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References
Du, B., Zhang, H., Ji, D., Huang, Z., Gan, F., and Jun, Z. (2022). Environmental contamination and health risk assessment to toxic elements in an active lead-zinc mining area. Expo. Health. doi:10.1007/s12403-022-00515-y
Du, B., Zhou, J., Lu, B., Zhang, C., Li, D., Zhou, J., et al. (2020). Environmental and human health risks from cadmium exposure near an active lead-zinc mine and a copper smelter, China. Sci. Total Environ. 720, 137585. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.137585
Han, D., Wu, X., Li, R., Tang, X., Xiao, S., and Scholz, M. (2021). Critical review of electro-kinetic remediation of contaminated soils and sediments: Mechanisms, performances and technologies. Water Air Soil Pollut. 232 (8), 335–429. doi:10.1007/s11270-021-05182-4
Khanam, R., Kulsum, P. G. P. S., Debnath, S., Roychowdhury, T., and Mandal, B. (2022). Impact of soil amendment regimes on arsenic exposure to human through rice: Risk assessment and prediction for remediation. Expo. Health. doi:10.1007/s12403-022-00495-z
Liu, H.-L., Zhou, J., Li, M., Hu, Y.-m., Liu, X., and Zhou, J. (2019). Study of the bioavailability of heavy metals from atmospheric deposition on the soil-pakchoi (Brassica chinensis L.) system. J. Hazard. Mater. 362, 9–16. doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2018.09.032
Liu, H., Zhou, J., Li, M., Xia, R., Wang, X., and Zhou, J. (2022). Dynamic behaviors of newly deposited atmospheric heavy metals in the soil-pak choi system. Environ. Sci. Technol. 56 (17), 12734–12744. doi:10.1021/acs.est.2c04062
Song, B., Zeng, G., Gong, J., Liang, J., Xu, P., Liu, Z., et al. (2017). Evaluation methods for assessing effectiveness of in situ remediation of soil and sediment contaminated with organic pollutants and heavy metals. Environ. Int. 105, 43–55. doi:10.1016/j.envint.2017.05.001
Keywords: soil and sediment pollution, risk assessment, risk control, environmental process, remediation, pollutant, environmental modeling, biogeochemical process
Citation: Du B, Cui H, Gu C, Li Z and Zhou J (2022) Editorial: Soil and sediment pollution, processes and remediation, volume II. Front. Environ. Sci. 10:1105471. doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2022.1105471
Received: 22 November 2022; Accepted: 01 December 2022;
Published: 07 December 2022.
Edited and reviewed by:
Yuncong Li, University of Florida, United StatesCopyright © 2022 Du, Cui, Gu, Li and Zhou. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Jun Zhou, Jun_Zhou@uml.edu, zhoujun@issas.ac.cn