Aims and scope
Environmental Earth Sciences is an international multidisciplinary geosciences journal concerned with anthropogenically altered interactions within the geosphere and between the geosphere–biosphere. It aims to advance the scientific evidence for sustainability of natural resources and management of geological, chemical and biological hazards.
The geosphere has four subcomponents: lithosphere (solid Earth), atmosphere (gaseous envelope), hydrosphere (liquid water), and cryosphere (frozen water). It can be understood as the part of the Earth system that supplies energy and material to support all life forms including homo sapiens. Besides the Environmental Earth Science discipline, relevant areas include geophysics, geochemistry, biogeosciences, engineering geology, hydrogeology, and physical geography.”
Knowledge emerging from observation, data analysis and modeling approaches spanning a range of spatial and temporal scales is of interest. Contributions highlighting technological and engineering innovations are within the
scope. The focus is on coupled processes and risk assessment and mitigation in the geosphere affecting water, soil, mineral and energy resources. Given that geologists have long been concerned with rocks and minerals, the EES journal will continue to maintain this solid phase focus, but will expand to also consider other forms of solid phases, such as sediment (which holds groundwater), soil (which supports terrestrial ecosystems), waterborne suspended particulate matter (which transports chemicals in rivers), and air-borne particulate matter (which affects water and soil quality as dry deposition). Investigations of the physical, chemical and biological aspects of these solid phases and their associated liquid and gaseous environmental media are of interest.
Examples of topics within the scope of the journal are (not exhaustive):
- Groundwater systems: the quality, quantity and sustainability of groundwater
- Deep sub-surface reservoirs: geothermal energy and nuclear waste disposal
- Geo-hazards: man-made or naturally occurring such as landslide
- Geological and water resources engineering: to reduce ecosystem and human health risks and to prolong sustained access to natural resources
- Environmental impact assessment from a geological perspective: data- and model-driven risk analysis during extraction of fossil fuels, minerals and ores including those for renewable energy production, and in the disposal of hazardous materials and solid waste
- Research tools: geophysical, geochemical and geobiological observational tools, geostatistical and geospatial methods, data assimilation and modeling methods for sub-surface environment and solid phase investigations, artificial intelligence-based characterization of data and processes