Comment ▼
An important story wo liters of pure water—that’s all it takes each day. Fourteen cubic meters of clean air and about 100 grams of uncontaminated meat and vegetables per day comprise the most basic of human necessities. They represent the first rung on the hierarchical ladder of human needs by Abraham Maslow, the noted humanistic psychologist who told of our ultimate drive for self-actualization. But first, the most basic necessities for life are required. Pure water, clean air, and healthy ecosystems are what this journal is all about, and, when you think about it, it is an important story. In ES&T in 2003, we published articles on contamination of groundwater and milk by perchlorate, mercury, and polybrominated diphenyl ethers in water and fish; declining ecosystems; nanotechnology; and the quality of air at Ground Zero in New York City following the September 11 tragedy. In total, we published about 850 research articles and dozens of features and viewpoints that document the state of our environment at the local, regional, and global scales and the control technologies to improve it. Air, water, and soil contamination were reported and, just as importantly, articles on analytical methods, models, policy tools, and technologies were published to analyze basic environmental processes and to ameliorate the problems. It was a good year for ES&T. In the vernacular of the publishing industry, ES&T is considered a “hot” journal, meaning that there is great interest on the part of the scientific community and news organizations in what we publish. We received 15% more research manuscripts in 2003 than the year before, and we processed them with an average time of 30 weeks from receipt to publication (and
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© 2004 American Chemical Society
without page charges). Over the past three years, the rejection ratio on submitted manuscripts has increased a bit to about 0.57 from 0.5 in 1990–2000, among the highest of ACS journals. The Science Citation Index impact factor for the journal rose to 3.12 from 2.71, a trend that we hope to continue by publishing the highest quality papers possible. ES&T receives the largest number of citations of any journal in the world in both environmental science and environmental engineering (more than 40% of all citations). This past year, we published a special issue on green engineering and we have plans for upcoming issues highlighting ecotoxicology and environmental aspects of nanotechnology. In 2004, there will be a magazine section in every issue of the journal for the first time, and special awards will honor top reviewers (upon whom we dearly depend) and best papers from the previous year. We seek top-notch environmental research articles from all over the world to improve the quality of the journal and to accelerate the internationalization of ES&T. Considering the challenges required for pure water, clean air, and healthy ecosystems and people, you tell an important story. At ES&T, we take the responsibility very seriously, but we are completely dependent on you for research contributions and peer review. If you have suggestions on how to improve our journal, I would very much like to hear from you.
Jerald L. Schnoor Editor
[email protected] JANUARY 1, 2004 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY ■ 7A
