--- name: brycewang-stanford/environmental-pollution source: https://app.decimal.ai/s/brycewang-stanford-environmental-pollution@1/SKILL.md source_sha256: 67d9b919791c --- # Environmental Pollution (environmental-pollution) ## Journal positioning Environmental Pollution is the Elsevier journal for environmental contamination and its effects — the sources, fate, transport, and ecological and health impacts of pollutants across air, water, soil, and biota, including emerging contaminants, microplastics, metals, and persistent organics. Its defining expectation is **rigorous evidence of pollutant impact, not mere detection**: a study that quantifies a contaminant with sound measurement and controls and connects it to fate, transport, exposure, or an ecological/health effect. A "we detected X in Y" survey with no impact, mechanism, or fate insight — and no quantification beyond presence — is a weak fit. This skill is a **fit / venue-selection / re-framing** tool. It does not replace the journal's current author guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live Environmental Pollution submission guidance. ## When to trigger - The author names Environmental Pollution and wants a fit/framing check for a contamination or pollutant-impact paper. - An occurrence/monitoring survey must be re-framed around fate, transport, exposure, or a demonstrated ecological/health effect. - The author is choosing between Environmental Pollution, an environmental-health venue, and a general environmental-science journal. - The author needs this journal's measurement-rigor and impact-evidence bar and desk-reject heuristics. ## Scope & topic fit - Sources, occurrence, and environmental behavior (fate, transport, transformation, partitioning) of pollutants in air, water, soil, sediment, and biota. - Emerging contaminants and microplastics/nanoplastics: occurrence, characterization, and documented environmental or biological effects. - Metals, persistent organic pollutants, pesticides, and their bioaccumulation, biomagnification, and toxicity. - Ecotoxicology and ecological impact of contamination at organism, population, community, or ecosystem level, with mechanistic or effect evidence. - Human-exposure-relevant contamination when the environmental contamination process is central (the health endpoint is supportive, not the whole study). - Remediation, mitigation, and pollution-control studies when contaminant behavior and effectiveness are quantitatively demonstrated. ## Method & evidence bar - The contribution must go **beyond detection**: quantify the contaminant and connect it to fate, transport, exposure, or an ecological/health effect with defensible evidence. - Analytical measurements need validated methods, QA/QC, blanks, recovery, LOD/LOQ, and contamination control — especially critical for microplastics and trace contaminants. - Sampling design must be representative and adequately replicated; spatial/temporal confounding and background levels must be addressed. - Ecotoxicological and effect studies need proper controls, dose/concentration-response where relevant, environmentally realistic exposures, and statistics matched to the design. - Fate/transport and modeling claims must be supported by data or validated models with uncertainty, not assumed. - Causal or impact claims must be proportionate to the evidence; correlation between presence and an effect is not impact without mechanism or controlled comparison. ## Structure & house style - Standard research-article format; the journal also publishes reviews and shorter formats — re-check current article types and length on the live guide. - The introduction must frame the contamination problem and the specific fate/impact gap, not only that a pollutant is topical. - Figures and tables should be quantitative and impact-oriented (concentration distributions with QA/QC, dose-response, fate/transport results, effect endpoints), with method validation in SI. - Methods, data, and QA/QC must support reproducibility; follow the journal's data-availability expectations and any contamination-control reporting (notably for microplastics). - Graphical abstract and highlights are expected; re-check current specifications on the live guide. ## Official-submission checklist - Before giving submission-ready advice, read `../../resources/source-basis.md` and `../../resources/official-source-map.md`; start from the Elsevier anchors, then cite the current Environmental Pollution page you checked. - Search the live site for "Environmental Pollution guide for authors" and follow the current Elsevier version. - Re-check article types, length, abstract, and graphical-abstract/highlights requirements. - Confirm QA/QC and contamination-control reporting expectations (e.g., blanks, recovery, microplastics protocols). - Re-check data-availability, raw-data deposition, and supplementary-data policy. - Re-check competing-interests, funding, author-contribution, and AI-use disclosure, and open-access terms. - If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win. ## Pre-submission self-check - [ ] The study goes beyond "we detected X" to fate, transport, exposure, or a demonstrated effect. - [ ] Analytical methods are validated with QA/QC, blanks, recovery, and LOD/LOQ reported. - [ ] Sampling is representative and replicated, with background and confounding addressed. - [ ] Effect/ecotoxicology work has controls, realistic exposures, and (where relevant) dose-response. - [ ] Impact/causal claims are proportionate to the evidence, with mechanism or controlled comparison. - [ ] Highlights, graphical abstract, and QA/QC reporting are prepared per the live guide. ## Common desk-reject triggers - An occurrence/monitoring survey reporting only presence, with no fate, exposure, or impact. - Trace-contaminant or microplastics measurements with no QA/QC or contamination control. - Ecotoxicology at unrealistic concentrations or without proper controls or dose-response. - Impact claims from correlation alone, with no mechanism or controlled comparison. - Single-site, single-time-point sampling presented as a general contamination conclusion. - Scope mismatch: a human-health epidemiology paper, or a pure analytical-method or remediation-engineering paper, with no pollution-impact contribution. ## Re-routing decision - Human-exposure-to-health link is the core (epidemiology/exposome) → `environment-international`. - Public-health/policy framing with NIEHS-style remit → `environmental-health-perspectives`. - Biological/ecological response driven by global change rather than a pollutant → `global-change-biology`. - Dietary-contaminant chemistry is the contribution → `food-chemistry`. - Pollution-control technology/engineering emphasis → `environmental-science-and-technology`. ## Output format ```text [Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason) [Target] Environmental Pollution [Topic tags] <2–3 closest contamination/pollutant topics> [Impact beyond detection] [Method/evidence] [Top risk] [Official items to re-check]
[Re-route suggestion] ```