Pollution is a critical threat to ecosystems, human health, and the planet’s future. From industrial waste in China to microplastics in the Mediterranean and PFAS contamination in the U.S., pollutants spread across air, water, and soil, harming wildlife and communities worldwide. Understanding how these contaminants move, transform, and impact the environment is key to designing effective solutions.

This collection brings together cutting-edge research on pollution sources, environmental behavior, risks, and innovative cleanup strategies—covering everything from heavy metals in mining regions to pharmaceutical waste in urban waterways. We highlight advances in environmental science, green technology, and policy to tackle both long-standing and emerging threats like e-waste and AI-driven monitoring. The topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Pollution Origins: Industrial, agricultural, and urban sources, including legacy and emerging contaminants.

• Environmental Pathways: How pollutants travel through air, water, soil, and food chains.

• Risks and Impacts: Effects on biodiversity and human health, from local hotspots to global crises.

• Cleanup and Prevention: Nature-based solutions (like wetland restoration) and high-tech innovations (such as catalytic oxidation).

• Policy and Tools: Smart regulations, predictive modeling, and new detection methods.

This Collection supports and amplifies research related to: SDG 11

Keywords:PFAS, Heavy metals, Microplastics, Emerging Contaminants, Emission sources, Environmental forensics, Ecological indicators, Pollution sources, Contaminant transport, Ecological risk assessment, Pollutant fate and transformation, Bioaccumulation, Ecological restoration, Remediation technologies, Sustainable pollution management

Climate change poses a significant threat to both biophysical systems and societal communities. Climate resilience is embedded within socio-ecological systems (SES), where social actors and the ecological units they manage are interdependent as part of their livelihoods. Achieving climate resilience requires adjustments to social structures, political and economic systems, power dynamics, worldviews, cultures, values, and ideologies in order to create a sustainable, climate-resilient society. Additionally, there is a need to bridge emerging technology (e.g., AI) with social innovation to enhance the capacity for real-time, data-driven decision-making, foster community-resilient responses to climate impacts, and ultimately reshape climate adaptation policies and practices.

The Collection invites the submission of interdisciplinary and policy-oriented research with innovative systems approaches and emerging methodologies for decision-making and co-designing climate solutions. We encourage contributions from a wide range of fields, including environmental science, sociology, human geography, environmental economics, environmental public health and public policy, etc. We seek research that focuses on the interconnectedness between human societies and natural ecological systems, the impacts of climate change on human well-being, community adaptive capacity, innovative governance solutions, knowledge co-production (with an emphasis on local and indigenous knowledge for climate adaptation), climate equity, local and global collaboration efforts, and the role of technology and education in enhancing climate resilience.

Manuscripts presenting empirical studies, theoretical frameworks, policy analysis, and case studies that contribute both to theoretical advancements and practical applications are encouraged.

Keywords:Socio-Ecological Resilience, Climate Governance, Technological And Social Innovation, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Sustainability Transition, Human And Ecological Well-Being