About this Research Topic

Background

Aquatic pollution caused by anthropogenic activities has been one of the major environmental problems worldwide for decades. Rapid industrialization and urbanization are releasing "traditional" pollutants (e.g., toxic metals, pesticides, petrochemicals) and emerging contaminants (e.g., endocrine-disrupting chemicals, plasticizers, microplastics, and so on) into waters in unprecedented quantities and diversity, ultimately endangering biodiversity and human health. Meanwhile, management and control of risks of chemical pollutants, with varying scientific foundation, stringency, and efficacy, are being practiced in different countries and regions.

A limiting factor for effective ecological risk assessment and thus management is the lack of knowledge of exposure, bioaccumulation, toxic effects, and toxicity mechanisms of various types of pollutions in waters with contrasting physicochemical properties. For example, the environmental behavior and bioavailability of metals are highly dependent on their speciation and water chemistry (e.g., organic matter, pH, and hardness), thus requiring site-specific risk assessments. In comparison, organic pollutants are also highly complex in terms of toxicity prediction and risk assessment due to their infinite structural diversity and mode of action. Due to different physicochemical properties and interactive effects of pollutants, the biological impacts and toxicity mechanisms of pollutants in the natural environment are more complex, posing challenges to risk assessment.

This Research Topic aims to highlight recent advances in research on the toxicity mechanisms and ecological risk assessment of typical pollutions in aquatic environments. It primarily addresses bioaccumulation, biomonitoring, toxic effects, and ecological risk assessment and control of traditional and emerging pollutants. It welcomes high-quality original research papers on these topics, showing both technical breakthroughs and innovations with respect to the mechanisms of action and risk assessment. Review articles describing the current state and future directions of research in this field are also welcomed.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Bioavailability and bioaccumulation of typical pollutants (toxic metals and organic pollutants) in aquatic environments.
• Toxic effect mechanisms of emerging pollutants in aquatic organisms.
• Biomarkers of emerging pollutants in aquatic environments.
• Ecological responses to multiple environmental stressors in water environments.
• Environmental fate, transformations, and biogeochemical process of toxic pollutants in aquatic environments.
• Ecological risk assessments of toxic metals and emerging pollutants in aquatic ecosystems.
• Human health risk assessment of aquatic pollutants.

Keywords: toxic effect, ecological risk assessment, aquatic environment, Typical Pollutants, emerging contaminants

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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