Dear Colleagues,

Industrialization, despite its benefits, has been identified as a major environmental threat, with the associated water pollution representing a great menace to humans and wildlife. Currently, there is a vast variety of substances reaching coastal environments, from classical to newly developed chemicals, all posing a risk to marine wildlife. For decades, classical pollutants (e.g., trace metals) have been monitored worldwide and their impacts on the aquatic environment identified. Regarding emerging pollutants (EPs), although an increasing number of studies have reported their environmental occurrence, scarce information is available concerning the risks imposed by a large variety of EPs on aquatic systems and, in particular, their inhabiting organisms. Among EPs, nanomaterials are of major relevance. Due to their properties, a vast range of nanomaterials have been used in a wide variety of applications, including new approaches to protect aquatic environments, such as water filtration, biosensors, and nano-based coatings. The lack of information regarding their environmental concentrations and potential toxicity justifies the concern over these pollutants. Nevertheless, technological advances have not been paralleled with aquatic impact assessments; although, an increasing number of studies have highlighted the toxic effects of nanomaterials toward aquatic wildlife. Furthermore, very scarce information is available regarding the impacts of nanomaterials when under different climate change scenarios. Projections point out an increase in extreme weather events in both frequency and intensity, with consequences on the structure and functioning of aquatic systems and affecting not only organisms’ sensitivity (namely to pollutants) but also pollutants’ toxic capacity. Thus, new knowledge on this topic will support governmental and regulatory agencies and policies toward the protection of aquatic systems in order to maintain goods and ecosystem services, guarantee safe marine products and human health, and meet international strategies, including the UN Ocean Decade and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Dr. Rosa Freitas
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Nanomaterials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• nanomaterials
• climate change
• marine and freshwater systems
• impacts
• biodiversity