Since the twentieth century, human activities have generated a plethora of toxic organic and inorganic pollutants that have been released into the surface environment, causing a number of environmental public health issues. Many industrial processes produce pollutants that reach soils through spills, leaks, tank and pipeline ruptures, irrigation, atmospheric transport, and other disposal pathways. These pollutants can accumulate in soil and sediment systems, posing significant threats to food security, ecological and human health. There is an increasing number of abandoned industrial sites due to weak environmental management (insufficient management, legislation and enforcement). The pollution process, migration, transformation, degradation, and accumulation of toxic pollutants in soil and sediment of industrial sites are not well understood and reuse of these sites requires remediation.

Most importantly, it is necessary to control the source of pollutants and prevent pollutants from entering soil and sediment. The remediation of contaminated soil and sediment is dependent upon the degree of pollution. 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.

Contributions to this Research Topic can include, but are not limited to:

- Sources, migration, and transformation of pollutants in soil and sediment
- Plant and microbe response and environmental effect in polluted soils
- Biogeochemistry and processes of pollutants between the atmosphere, organisms, water and soil/sediment systems
- Safe use and risk assessment and control of contaminated soil and sediment
- Mitigation and remediation technologies
- Environmental modeling of the fate and biogeochemical process of pollutants

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Frontiers in Environmental Science

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