author guidelines water research

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Submission guidelines

• Online submission
• Submission policies
• General information for preparing manuscripts
• Cover letter
• Reporting summary and editorial policy checklist
• Format of manuscripts
• Author Contributions
• Acknowledgements
• Competing interests
• Data availability
• Computer code
• Supplementary information
• General figure guidelines
• Figures for peer review
• Figures for publication

Submitting video files as figures

• Statistical guidelines
• Gene nomenclature
• Characterization of chemical and biomolecular materials  

Online submission  

All manuscripts must be submitted via our online submission system using the  Submit manuscript link. Using this system, authors can upload manuscript files (text, figures, videos) directly to our office and check on the status of their manuscripts during the review process. In addition, Reviewers can access the manuscript online, which speeds up the review process. Revised manuscripts should be uploaded via the link provided in the Editor's decision letter. Please do not submit revisions as new manuscripts. Before a manuscript is submitted, please review our Editorial policies , and ensure that the submission complies with our policy requirements. Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT , do not currently satisfy our authorship criteria . Notably an attribution of authorship carries with it accountability for the work, which cannot be effectively applied to LLMs. Use of an LLM should be properly documented in the Methods section (and if a Methods section is not available, in a suitable alternative part) of the manuscript. In response to emerging information, advice, guidance and policy around artificial intelligence (AI), we have created a dedicated AI section in our  Editorial Policy page . Please familiarize yourself with this content and comply with relevant policies.  

ORCID  

Orcid for corresponding authors.

As part of our efforts to improve transparency in authorship, we ask all corresponding authors of accepted papers to provide their Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID) ID, before submitting the final version of the manuscript . To do this, the corresponding author will need to:

• Log in using this link: Submit manuscript
• Click 'Modify My Springer Nature Account'
• Under the ‘Personal Profile’ tab, click ‘Create/link an Open Researcher Contributor ID (ORCID)'

Submission policies  

Submission to npj Clean Water is taken to imply that there is no significant overlap between the submitted manuscript and any other papers from the same authors under consideration or in press elsewhere. (Abstracts or unrefereed web preprints do not compromise novelty). The authors must include copies of all related manuscripts with any overlap in authorship that are under consideration or in press elsewhere. If a related manuscript is submitted elsewhere while the manuscript is under consideration at npj Clean Water , a copy of the related manuscript must be sent to the Editor. The primary affiliation for each author should be the institution where the majority of their work was done. If an author has subsequently moved, the current address may also be stated. If the manuscript includes personal communications, please provide a written statement of permission from any person who is quoted. E-mail permission messages are acceptable. Follow this link for further information on the review process and how Editors make decisions. After acceptance, changes to the manuscript may be made so that papers conform to our style. The corresponding author is sent proofs and is welcome to discuss changes with the Editors, but npj Clean Water reserves the right to make the final decision about matters of style and the size of figures. The Editors also reserve the right to reject a paper even after it has been accepted if it becomes apparent that there are serious problems with the scientific content or with violations of our publishing policies.  

General information for preparing manuscripts  

This guide outlines key points for preparing primary research manuscripts for submission to npj Clean Water . The corresponding author should be familiar with the journal’s Editorial policies and is solely responsible for communicating with the journal and managing communication between coauthors. Before submission, the corresponding author ensures that all authors are included in the author list and agree with its order, and that they are aware the manuscript is to be submitted.  

Reporting summary and editorial policy checklist  

Research articles in Life Sciences, Health Sciences, Earth and Environmental Sciences, and Social and Behavioural Sciences must include relevant details about several elements of experimental and analytical design. These requirements aim to improve the transparency of reporting and the reproducibility of published results. They focus on elements of methodological information that are frequently poorly reported (see more details on these elements here ). You will be asked to complete and submit the Nature Portfolio Reporting Summary together with the revised version of your manuscript after peer-review. Please see our editorial policies page for details and to download the Reporting Summary document. The reporting summary will be published with all accepted manuscripts. All authors must also complete an editorial policy checklist to ensure compliance with Nature Portfolio editorial policies.

Other checklists

If your manuscript is sent for peer-review, you will also be asked to complete the Nature Portfolio Editorial Policy Checklist. This checklist is not sent to the Reviewers but must be received by the Editors before the paper can be sent for peer-review. A copy of the checklist can also be downloaded on our policies page . Authors are encouraged to include both completed forms at the time of submission.

The Reporting Summary will be published as a Supplementary File alongside all primary research articles in Life Sciences, Health Sciences, Physical Sciences, Applied Sciences, or Society & the environment accepted from January 2019.  

Cover letter  

Authors should provide a cover letter that includes the affiliation and contact information for the corresponding author. The cover letter is an excellent opportunity to briefly discuss the context and importance of the submitted work and why it is appropriate for the journal. Please avoid repeating information that is already present in the abstract and introduction. The cover letter is not shared with the referees, and should be used to provide confidential information, such as conflicts of interest, and to declare any related work that is in press or submitted elsewhere. It is also appropriate to include suggested or excluded referees in the cover letter. We strive to ensure that the diversity of our Reviewers reflects that of the broad scientific community, in terms of gender, ethnicity/race, geographic location and career stage. We ask that you keep this in mind when suggesting potential Reviewers.  

Format of manuscripts  

Manuscripts submitted to npj Clean Water do not need to adhere to our formatting requirements at the point of initial submission; formatting requirements only apply at the time of acceptance.  We encourage authors to incorporate the manuscript text and figures into a single PDF or Microsoft Word file. Suitably high resolution figures may be inserted within the text at appropriate positions or grouped at the end. Each figure legend should be presented on the same page as its figure. We can accept LaTeX files at the acceptance stage, but before then please supply compiled PDFs. Manuscripts published in the npj Series journals are not subject to in-depth copy editing or display item redrawing as part of the production process. Authors are encouraged to seek copy editing or language editing services for their manuscripts, either before submission or at the revision stage, should they feel it would benefit their manuscript. Such services include those provided by Springer Nature Author Services and American Journal Experts . Please note that the use of any editing service is at the author's own expense and in no way implies that the article will be selected for peer review or accepted for publication.  

Methods  

Authors must ensure that their Methods section includes adequate experimental and characterization data necessary for others in the field to reproduce their work. Please refer to our editorial policies for more information. Descriptions of standard protocols and experimental procedures should be given. Commercial suppliers of reagents or instrumentation should be identified. Sources for kits should be identified. Experimental protocols that describe the synthesis of compounds should be included. Authors should describe the experimental protocol in detail, referring to amounts of reagents in parentheses, when possible (e.g. 1.03 g, 0.100 mmol). Standard abbreviations for reagents and solvents are encouraged. Safety hazards posed by reagents or protocols should be identified clearly. Isolated mass and percent yields should be reported at the end of each protocol. The Methods section should be subdivided by short bold headings referring to methods used and we encourage the inclusion of specific subsections for statistics, reagents and animal models. We encourage authors to deposit the step-by-step protocols used in their study in www.protocols.io , an open repository of scientific protocols. Protocols deposited by the authors will be linked to the online Methods section upon publication.  

References  

References are numbered sequentially as they appear in the text, methods, tables, figure legends. Only one publication is given for each number. Only papers that have been published or accepted by a named publication or recognized preprint server should be in the numbered list. Meeting abstracts that are not published and papers in preparation should be mentioned in the text with a list of authors (or initials if any of the authors are co-authors of the present contribution). Published conference abstracts, numbered patents and research datasets may be included in the reference list. When referencing a dataset, a DOI or accession code should be included in the citation where available. URLs for web sites should be cited parenthetically in the text, not in the reference list; articles in formal, peer-reviewed online journals should be included in the reference list. Grant details and acknowledgments are not permitted as numbered references. Footnotes are not used. The npj Series journals use standard Nature referencing style. All authors should be included in reference lists unless there are more than five, in which case only the first author should be given, followed by 'et al.'. Authors should be listed last name first, followed by a comma and initials (followed by full stops) of given names. Article titles should be in Roman text, the first word of the title should be capitalized and the title written exactly as it appears in the work cited, ending with a full stop. Book titles should be given in italics and all words in the title should have initial capitals. Journal names are italicized and abbreviated (with full stops) according to common usage. Volume numbers and the subsequent comma appear in bold. Published papers: Printed journals: Schott, D. H., Collins, R. N. & Bretscher, A. Secretory vesicle transport velocity in living cells depends on the myosin V lever arm length. J. Cell Biol. 156 , 35-39 (2002). Online only: Bellin, D. L. et al. Electrochemical camera chip for simultaneous imaging of multiple metabolites in biofilms. Nat. Commun. 7 , 10535; 10.1038/ncomms10535 (2016). For papers with more than five authors include only the first author’s name followed by ‘ et al .’. Books: Smith, J. Syntax of referencing in How to reference books (ed. Smith, S.) 180-181 (Macmillan, 2013). Online material: Manaster, J. Sloth squeak. Scientific American Blog Network http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/psi-vid/2014/04/09/sloth-squeak (2014). Hao, Z., AghaKouchak, A., Nakhjiri, N. & Farahmand, A. Global integrated drought monitoring and prediction system (GIDMaPS) data sets. figshare http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.853801 (2014).  

Author contributions  

The npj Series journals require an Author Contribution Statement that specifies the individual contributions of each co-author. 

Please use initials to refer to each author's contribution in this section, for example: "FC analyzed and interpreted the patient data regarding the hematological disease and the transplant. RH performed the histological examination of the kidney, and was a major contributor in writing the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Acknowledgements  

Acknowledgements should be brief, and should not include thanks to anonymous Reviewers and Editors, or effusive comments. Relevant grant or contribution numbers should be included. Funding information should be placed in the Acknowledgement section. When acknowledging funding, our recommended best practice is that authors should acknowledge funders and grants on publications when the activities that contributed to that publication are within scope of the acknowledged grant and arise directly from a specific grant. The role of the funding body in the design of the study and collection, analysis, and interpretation of data and in writing the manuscript should also be declared. If the funder has played no role in the research, this should be stated. 

Declaring funding in the Acknowledgments can take one of the following forms: 

This study was funded by [funder name] [grant number where applicable]. The funder played no role in study design, data collection, analysis and interpretation of data, or the writing of this manuscript. 

This study received no funding.

Competing interests  

A competing interests statement is required for all accepted papers published in the npj Series journals. If there is no competing interest, a statement declaring this is still required.

Competing interests may take one of the following forms (or a combination of more than one):

All authors declare no financial or non-financial competing interests. 

Author IJ holds shares in [company name A] but and declares no non-financial competing interests. Author KL has previously acted as a paid consultant for [company name B] but declares no non-financial competing interests. All other authors declare no financial or non-financia competing interests. 

Authors AB, EF, GH declare no financial or non-financial competing interests. Author CD serves as [Editor role title] of this journal and had no role in the peer-review or decision to publish this manuscript. Author CD declares no financial competing interests.  

Data availability  

Data availability statements should provide a statement about the availability of the minimal dataset that would be necessary to interpret, replicate and build upon the methods or findings reported in the article. Data availability statements should be provided as a separate section after the Methods section before the References, under the heading "Data Availability".  

Data availability statements can take one of the following forms (or a combination of more than one if required for multiple datasets):

The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are available in the [insert name of repository] repository, [insert persistent URL to datasets]. 

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].

The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to [INSERT REASON WHY DATA ARE NOT PUBLIC] but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

The data that support the findings of this study are available from [third party name] but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under licence for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of [third party name].  

Code availability  

Any previously unreported custom computer code or scripts used to generate results reported in the manuscript that are central to the main claims must be made available to Editors and referees upon request. Any practical issues preventing code sharing will be evaluated by the Editors who reserve the right to decline the manuscript if important code is unavailable. At publication, Nature Portfolio journals consider it best practice to release custom computer code in a way that allows readers to repeat the published results. For all studies using custom code that is deemed central to the conclusions, a statement must be included in the Methods section, under the heading "Code availability", indicating whether and how the code can be accessed, including any restrictions. Code availability statements can take one of the following forms (or a combination of more than one if required):

The underlying code [and training/validation datasets] for this study is available in [repository name] and can be accessed via this link [insert persistent URL to code]. 

The underlying code for this study [and training/validation datasets] is not publicly available for proprietary reasons. 

The underlying code for this study [and training/validation datasets] is not publicly available but may be made available to qualified researchers on reasonable request from the corresponding author.  

Supplementary information  

Any Supplementary Information should be submitted with the manuscript and will be sent to referees during peer review. It is published online with accepted manuscripts. We request that authors avoid "data not shown" statements and instead make their data available via deposition in a public repository (see 'Reporting standards and availability of data, materials, code and protocols' for more information). Any data necessary to evaluate the claims of the paper that are not available via a public depository should be provided as Supplementary Information. Supplementary Information is not edited, typeset or proofed, so authors should ensure that it is clearly and succinctly presented at initial submission, and that the style and terminology conform to the rest of the paper. Please note that modification of Supplementary Information after the paper is published requires a formal correction, so authors are encouraged to check their Supplementary Information carefully before submitting the final version. Further queries about submission and preparation of Supplementary Information should be directed to the editorial team. Please visit our contact page .   

General figure guidelines  

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to publish any figures or illustrations that are protected by copyright, including figures published elsewhere and pictures taken by professional photographers. The journal cannot publish images downloaded from the internet without appropriate permission. Unnecessary figures should be avoided: data presented in small tables or histograms, for instance, can generally be stated briefly in the text instead. Figures should not contain more than one panel unless the parts are logically connected; each panel of a multipart figure should be sized so that the whole figure can be reduced by the same amount and reproduced at the smallest size at which essential details are visible. Should your manuscript be accepted, you will receive more extensive instructions for final submission of display items. However, some guidelines for final figure preparation are included below if you wish to minimize later revisions and possible delays. Figures should be numbered separately with Arabic numerals in the order of occurrence in the text of the manuscript. When appropriate, figures should include error bars. A description of the statistical treatment of error analysis should be included in the figure legend. Please note that schemes are not used; sequences of chemical reactions or experimental procedures should be submitted as figures, with appropriate captions. A limited number of uncaptioned graphics depicting chemical structures—each labeled with their name, by a defined abbreviation, or by the bold Arabic numeral—may be included in a manuscript. Figure lettering should be in a clear, sans-serif typeface (for example, Helvetica); the same typeface in the same font size should be used for all figures in a paper. Use 'symbols' font for Greek letters. All display items should be on a white background, and should avoid excessive boxing, unnecessary colour, spurious decorative effects (such as three-dimensional 'skyscraper' histograms) and highly pixelated computer drawings. The vertical axis of histograms should not be truncated to exaggerate small differences. Labeling must be of sufficient size and contrast to be readable, even after appropriate reduction. The thinnest lines in the final figure should be no smaller than one point wide. Authors will see a proof that will include figures. Figures divided into parts should be labeled with a lower-case bold a, b, and so on, in the same type size as used elsewhere in the figure. Lettering in figures should be in lower-case type, with only the first letter of each label capitalized. Units should have a single space between the number and the unit, and follow SI nomenclature (for example, ms rather than msec) or the nomenclature common to a particular field. Thousands should be separated by commas (1,000). Unusual units or abbreviations should be spelled out in full or defined in the legend. Scale bars should be used rather than magnification factors, with the length of the bar defined. In legends, please use verbal explanations such as "open red triangles" rather than visual queues. Authors are encouraged to consider the needs of colourblind readers (a substantial minority of the male population) when choosing colours for figures. Many colourblind readers cannot interpret visuals that rely on discrimination of green and red, for example. Thus, we ask authors to recolor green-and-red heatmaps, graphs and schematics for which colours are chosen arbitrarily. Recoloring primary data, such as fluorescence or rainbow pseudo-coloured images, to colour-safe combinations such as green and magenta, turquoise and red, yellow and blue or other accessible colour palettes is strongly encouraged.  

Figure legends

Figures for peer review  .

At the initial submission stage authors should incorporate figures into the main article file, ensuring that any inserted figures are of sufficient quality to be clearly legible. If this is not possible in a combined manuscript file, authors should either submit separate high resolution figure files or deposit image data in a suitable repository (e.g. figshare) and use their option to provide a private sharing link for the referees to access it. When submitting a final manuscript for publication, all figures must be uploaded as separate figure files ensuring that the image quality and formatting conforms to the specifications below.  

Figures for publication  

Each complete figure must be supplied as a separate file upload. Multi-part/panel figures must be prepared and arranged as a single image file (including all sub-parts; a, b, c, etc.). Please do not upload each panel individually.

Please read the digital images integrity and standards section of our editorial policies. When possible, we prefer to use original digital figures to ensure the highest-quality reproduction in the journal. For optimal results, prepare figures to fit A4 page-width. Figures that do not meet these standards will not reproduce well and publication may be delayed until we receive high-resolution images. We cannot offer to provide corrected reprints with higher image quality if only poor quality images were supplied at accept stage. The npj Series journal Editors reserve the right to make the final decision about matters of style and the size of figures. When creating and submitting digital files, please follow the guidelines below. Failure to do so, or to adhere to the following guidelines, can significantly delay publication of your work.

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to publish any figures or illustrations that are protected by copyright, including figures published elsewhere and pictures taken by professional photographers. The journal cannot publish images downloaded from the internet without appropriate permission.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

• Provide images in RGB color and at 300 dpi or higher resolution.
• Use the same typeface (Arial or Helvetica) for all figures. Use symbol font for Greek letters.
• Use distinct colors with comparable visibility and avoid the use of red and green for contrast. Recoloring primary data, such as fluorescence images, to color-safe combinations such as green and magenta or other accessible color palettes is strongly encouraged. Use of the rainbow color scale should be avoided.
• Figures are best prepared at the size you would expect them to appear in print. At this size, the optimum font size is 8pt.
• We prefer vector files with editable layers. Acceptable formats are:  ai, .eps, .pdf, .ps and .svg for fully editable vector-based art; layered .psd and .tif for editable layered art; .psd, .tif, .png and .jpg for bitmap images; .ppt if fully editable and without styling effects; ChemDraw (.cdx) for chemical structures.
• For reporting of new chemical structures, please refer to our Chemical Style Guide . 

If you would like to submit a suggestion for the featured image on our homepage with the final version of your manuscript, please also include the Image Licence to Publish form.  

• Accepted file types include 3gp, asf, avi, flv, m1v, m2p, m2ts, m2v, m4a, m4v, mov, mp2, mp3, mp4, mpeg, mpg, mts, mxf, ogv, swf, wav, webm and wmv.
• The maximum size of the video figure should be 150 MB. The combined file size for all content should be no larger than 1GB. 
• Videos will be published online within your article text on our website and the first frame of your video will be used in the PDF file.
• Please add the following sentence to the relevant figure caption in the manuscript file to identify video figures: 'In the PDF version of this article, please click anywhere on the figure or caption to play the video in a separate window.’
• If authors wish to incorporate a video in a multipart figure, the whole figure would need to be submitted as a video. 

Statistical guidelines  

Comprehensive information on the statistical analyses used must be included in the paper. The Methods must include a statistics and reproducibility section with the following information. 

Every article that contains statistical testing should state the name of the statistical test, the n value for each statistical analysis, the comparisons of interest, a justification for the use of that test (including, for example, a discussion of the normality of the data when the test is appropriate only for normal data), the alpha level for all tests, whether the tests were one-tailed or two-tailed, and the actual P value for each test (not merely "significant" or "P < 0.05"). It should be clear what statistical test was used to generate every P value. Use of the word "significant" should always be accompanied by a P value; otherwise, use "substantial," "considerable," etc.

Data sets should be summarized with descriptive statistics, which should include the n value for each data set, a clearly labeled measure of centre (such as the mean or the median), and a clearly labeled measure of variability (such as standard deviation or range). Ranges are more appropriate than standard deviations or standard errors for small data sets. Graphs should include clearly labeled error bars. Authors must state whether a number that follows the ± sign is a standard error (s.e.m.) or a standard deviation (s.d.).

When plotting data, we require authors to use a format that clearly shows the full data distribution. If using a bar chart, please note that either individual data points must be overlaid on the bars or the chart must be converted to a dot-plot or box-and-whisker-plot format. 

Authors must justify the use of a particular test and explain whether their data conform to the assumptions of the tests. Three errors are particularly common:

Multiple comparisons: When making multiple statistical comparisons on a single data set, authors should explain how they adjusted the alpha level to avoid an inflated Type I error rate, or they should select statistical tests appropriate for multiple groups (such as ANOVA rather than a series of t-tests). Normal distribution: Many statistical tests require that the data be approximately normally distributed; when using these tests, authors should explain how they tested their data for normality. If the data do not meet the assumptions of the test, then a non-parametric alternative should be used instead. Small sample size: When the sample size is small (less than about 10), authors should use tests appropriate to small samples or justify their use of large-sample tests.  

Gene nomenclature  

Authors should use approved nomenclature for gene symbols, and use symbols rather than italicized full names (for example Ttn, not titin). Please consult the appropriate nomenclature databases for correct gene names and symbols. A useful resource is Entrez Gene , available from NCBI.

Approved human gene symbols are provided by HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee ( HGNC ), e-mail: [email protected]; see also www.genenames.org . Approved mouse symbols are provided by The Jackson Laboratory , e-mail: [email protected]; see also www.informatics.jax.org/mgihome/nomen .

For proposed gene names that are not already approved, please submit the gene symbols to the appropriate nomenclature committees as soon as possible, as these must be deposited and approved before publication of an article.

Avoid listing multiple names of genes (or proteins) separated by a slash, as in ' Oct4/Pou5f1 ', as this is ambiguous (it could mean a ratio, a complex, alternative names or different subunits). Use one name throughout and include any others at first mention: ' Oct4 (also known as Pou5f1 )'.

For information about referencing human single-nucleotide variants, see this editorial from Nature Genetics .  

Characterisation of chemical and biomolecular materials  

The npj Series journals are committed to publishing the highest-quality research. Manuscripts submitted to the journal will be held to rigorous standards with respect to experimental methods and characterization of compounds. Authors must provide adequate data to support their assignment of identity, purity and homogeneity for compounds and materials described in the manuscript. Editors and Reviewers will be responsible for assessing the completeness of the characterization. Authors should provide a statement confirming the source, identity and purity of known compounds and biomolecules that are central to the scientific study, even if they are purchased or resynthesised using published methods.  

Chemical nomenclature and abbreviations

Methods section, chemical identity, yield and sample purity, spectroscopy, characterization of chiral compounds, mass spectrometry, single-crystal x-ray diffraction, solid state compounds.

The homogeneity and purity of solid state compounds may be characterized by solid state NMR, powder X-ray diffraction data and where possible compared to calculated diffraction patterns.  

Combinatorial compound libraries

Authors describing the preparation of combinatorial libraries should include standard characterization data for a diverse panel of library components.  

Biomolecular identity

For new biopolymeric materials (oligosaccharides, peptides, nucleic acids, etc.), direct structural analysis by NMR spectroscopic methods may not be possible. In these cases, authors must provide evidence of identity based on sequence (when appropriate) and mass spectral characterization.  

Biological constructs

Authors should provide sequencing or functional data that validates the identity of their biological constructs (plasmids, fusion proteins, site-directed mutants, etc.) either in the manuscript text, supplementary information, or the Methods section, as appropriate.  

Chemical probe data

Small-molecule high-throughput screening data, macromolecular structural data, computational results.

When electronic structure calculations are reported in the manuscript, the atomic coordinates of the optimised computational models should be provided. Codes and software should be available and properly referenced in the article and/or supplementary information. Input parameters, basis sets and coordinates of the input and output structures must be reported. If relative energies are reported, absolute energies should be provided in the supplementary information. For molecular dynamics trajectories, at least the initial and final configurations should be supplied. We encourage you to make them available by uploading the structures in any of the existing data repositories (see e.g. https://www.nature.com/sdata/policies/repositories ). Alternatively, they can be supplied as a separate supplementary data file (ideally as a plain, unformatted text file).

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Last updated: April 19, 2024

Manuscript Submission Requirements Checklist

Scope of the journal, manuscript types, submit with fast format, document templates and format, acceptable software, file designations, and tex/latex, cover letter, manuscript text components, supporting information, research data policy, data requirements, language and editing services, preparing graphics, figure and illustration services, prior publication policy, editorial policies, providing potential reviewer names, manuscript transfer, proofs via acs direct correct, publication date and patent dates, asap publication, post-publication policies, sharing your published article.

• Cover letter
• Title: Titles should be clear and concise; they must match between manuscript file and electronic submission.
• Author list with affiliations: must match between electronic entry and manuscript file
• Manuscript File: Clean with no highlighting or comments and all changes accepted.
• (Highly encouraged) Have a colleague in another field read as test for accessibility.
• Tables/Schemes/Figures: Text should be clear and legible, with fonts no smaller than 8 pt.
• Figures: must be labeled sequentially and match numbered references in article (manuscript and Supporting Information). Where appropriate, label all subsections by letter.
• Supporting Information (if any) must be included in the electronic submission.
• Table of Contents Graphic
• References: no specific format required, but must be sufficient to aid referees in their reviewing duties.

Correspondence to the Editor-in-Chief should be addressed to:

Professor Shane Snyder, Editor-in-Chief, ACS ES&T Water

Email: [email protected]

ACS ES&T Water  is a high-quality specialist journal dedicated to publishing significant advancements in water research and policy to an international audience.   This multi-disciplinary journal publishes novel, high-impact, peer-reviewed research on all aspects of water quality, chemistry, treatment, protection, and sustainable use/reuse and supply. The Journal considers both marine and freshwater environments as well as water utilized for industrial and municipal applications.  ACS ES&T Water’s multi-disciplinary research focus also welcomes other water-related research fields.  Manuscripts describing public policy and the underlying science utilized for decision making are also encouraged. 

Specific topics of interest may include (but are not limited to) the following areas:

• Water quality and the transformation, transport and behavior of anthropogenic and geogenic physical, chemical, and biological contaminants in aqueous environments (groundwater, surface water, snow/ice, precipitation, and marine water).
• Water and wastewater treatment, including biological, physicochemical, separation, and natural processes.
• Water management, reuse, and sustainable supply.
• Marine, estuarine and freshwater biogeochemistry.
• Direct and indirect impacts of climate change and/or sea level rise.
• Remediation and restoration of natural aquatic systems.
• Innovative technologies for water quality monitoring and spatial vulnerability assessments. 
• Modelling groundwater, surface water and marine flow and contaminant behavior, transport and fate.
• Impact of new technologies on water quality remediation and protection from point and non-point sources.
• Spatial data on global and local water supply and water quality monitoring data trends.
• Water quality impacts to public and environmental health, including pathogen, chemical, and physical stressors.
• Risk assessment, regulatory frameworks, life-cycle assessments, economic impact calculations and social science implications.

ACS ES&T Water  accepts the following manuscript types:  Research Article, Review, Perspective, Feature, Viewpoint, Letter to the Editor, Correspondence/Rebuttal and Additions and Corrections. A full description of each manuscript type is shown below:

Research Article (flexible length typically up to 7,000 word-equivalents).

Research Articles in ACS ES&T Water report original research and innovative advances that are expected to contribute new insights and knowledge on all aspects of research on water quality, chemistry, treatment, protection, sustainable use/reuse, supply, and management.  Contributions are expected to have a definable impact in the fields of water research and/or policy.  Manuscripts that report data of a routine nature or that address topics that are already well understood will not be considered. 

Research articles consist of the following sections: Abstract; Keywords; Synopsis; Introduction; Experimental/Methods; Results and Discussion; Conclusions; References . The experimental/method section should include only pertinent information involved in the work and details not essential for understanding the paper should be placed in supporting information (SI). Research articles are reviewed initially by editors and then, if appropriate, sent for peer review. The Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editors, listed in the ACS ES&T Water masthead, make final decisions about all material published in ACS ES&T Water .

Review (length typically up to 10,000 word-equivalents).

Reviews describe and discuss thoroughly documented developments and issues in water research and/or policy. Reviews should summarize prior research and should also provide insights into the reviewed themes through analysis and organization of the published literature.  The cover letter accompanying the submission should provide justification for the need for a review on the topic and clearly state the novelty.  All Review articles will undergo full peer review. 

Perspective (length limit typically between 5,000 and 7,000 word-equivalents).

These contributions are reviews of a field or area and are focused rather than comprehensive. Perspective papers will assess the current status of a chosen field with an emphasis toward identifying key progress being made and identifying future research that is needed to advance the field. Perspective articles will undergo full peer review.

Feature (length limit typically up to 5,000 word-equivalents).

Feature articles are written in a magazine or journalistic style rather than as a scientific article. This article type should provide a balanced examination of significant developments and issues affecting the water research community. The assessment of timely topics from multiple perspectives—scientific, regulatory, technical—should provide readers with an authoritative and up-to-date understanding of the subject. Features will undergo full peer review, with reviewers providing comments on the factual accuracy, clarity, and significance of the contribution.

Viewpoint (length limit typically up to 1,000 to 1,500 word-equivalents + author affiliations + 5-10 references + 1 single-frame figure with 50-word caption OR a 350-word table).

Viewpoints are short opinion-style manuscripts, written in the journalistic style of an opinion piece in a newspaper or magazine.  They provide authors with a venue to comment on an issue of pressing importance to ACS ES&T Water ’s readership. Viewpoint articles should express an opinion of a clear scientific nature, based on rigorous scientific research in an environmental discipline. They should not be wholly political or summary in nature. Viewpoints are not generally peer reviewed but are subject to editorial approval. Corresponding authors of accepted articles will also be requested to provide a short biography (up to 200 words) and headshot for inclusion at the end of the published article. Model release and copyright forms are required for author photographs and will be provided by the journal office.

Letter to the Editor (length limit: 500 word-equivalents + author affiliations + 250 words of references).

Letter to the Editor contributions provide comments on the following already-published journalistic article types only:  Feature, Viewpoint, and Editorial (Comments).  Letters to the Editor should be submitted within two months of the publication date of the original material. The author(s) of the original material will be given an opportunity to reply.  If appropriate, both articles will be published in the same issue.  These articles are not peer reviewed.  

Please note:   Contributors wishing to comment on research content (this includes Research Article, Review, Perspective, Correspondence/Rebuttal, and Additions and Corrections), please submit a Correspondence/Rebuttal. 

Correspondence/Rebuttal (length limit: 1,000 word-equivalents each including citations).

These manuscripts provide scholarly comment on papers appearing in the research section (Research Article, Review, Perspective, Correspondence/Rebuttal, and Additions and Corrections). Correspondence should be submitted within six months of the publication date of the original paper and must raise substantive scientific or technical questions. Correspondence that consists mainly of opinion will not be considered. The author(s) of the original paper will be given an opportunity to respond.  Correspondence on previously published Correspondence will not be considered, and personal invective will not be tolerated. Correspondence/Rebuttal may undergo peer review under the direction of the assigned editor.  The correspondence and the rebuttal will be published consecutively in the same issue.  

Additions and Corrections (Errata) . These contributions may be used by the authors of a paper to correct errors and omissions of consequence that are identified after publication. Readers who also detect errors of consequence in the work of others should contact the corresponding author of the paper in question. Additions and Corrections must be approved by all coauthors before submission.   All Additions and Corrections are subject to editorial approval, and corrections of minor errors or omissions will not be published.

Special Issues ACS ES&T Water has a required template that must be completed for all proposals for special issues. If you would like to propose a special issue, please contact the managing editor for more information ( [email protected] ).

While these guidelines will provide basic information on how to prepare and submit the manuscript as well as other critical information about publishing, we also encourage authors to visit the ACS Publishing Center for additional information on everything that is needed to prepare (and review) manuscripts for ACS journals and partner journals, such as:

• Mastering the Art of Scientific Publication , which shares editor tips about a variety of topics including making your paper scientifically effective, preparing excellent graphics, and writing cover letters.
• Resources on how to prepare and submit a manuscript to ACS Paragon Plus, ACS Publications’ manuscript submission and peer review environment.
• Sharing your research with the public through the ACS Publications open access program.
• ACS Reviewer Lab , a free online course covering best practices for peer review and related ethical considerations. 
• ACS Author Lab , a free online course that empowers authors to prepare and submit strong manuscripts, avoiding errors that could lead to delays in the publication process.

ACS ES&T Water  - Quality Expectations

Clearly articulating the importance of your research and the quality of presentation of your manuscript will have an important impact on the ease with which it can undergo peer review and the impression it gives to reviewers of its overall quality. If your writing is rambling, fails to establish the purpose of the research, provides an incoherent discussion, puzzling figures, or inappropriate scales on graph axes, the technical merits of your research will be less easy to recognize. Please articulate clearly the purpose of your work, write concisely and with clarity, and provide well thought-out and clearly presented figures and tables with appropriate considerations of the magnitude of error. This will significantly increase the likelihood that we will publish your research.

Manuscript Preparation

All ACS journals and partner journals have simplified their formatting requirements in favor of a streamlined and standardized review-ready format for an initial manuscript submission. Read more about the requirements and the benefits these serves authors and reviewers here . 

Manuscripts submitted to ACS ES&T Water  must follow these simple formatting standards:

• The preferred format for manuscript files is a Microsoft Word document with the text and all graphics, including Table of Content art (TOC art), embedded within that single Word file.
• Supporting Information should be submitted as a separate file(s).
• Submissions must be complete with clearly identified standard sections used to report original research, free of annotations or highlights, and include all numbered and labeled components.
• The text of all article types should be double-spaced in a single column with the lines numbered consecutively in a separate column at the margin. 
• Figures, charts, tables, schemes, and equations should be embedded in the text. Separate graphics can be supplied at revision.
• References can be provided in any style, but they must be complete, including all authors and titles.

The use of manuscript templates is not required for ACS ES&T Water , but may be useful to consult to approximate how an article will compose.  

• Microsoft Word 2011 Template for Macintosh
• Microsoft Word 2010 Template for Windows | README file [PDF]

Additional generic instructions for submission of manuscripts and Supporting Information are available at the ACS Publishing Center . General information on the preparation of manuscripts may also be found in the ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication . For further support you can reach ACS via email at [email protected] , or by phone at 1-800-227-9919 (USA and Canada) or 1-202-872-4357. 

Length limits . The length limits for each article type are listed in the Manuscript Types section.  With the exception of Letters to the Editor, article length can be determined by counting all text, excluding title page, references, and figure/table captions. Next, add 300 words for each small figure, scheme, or table that takes up part of a page. Large multipart figures, extensive tables, detailed maps or chemical pathways taking up a page or more should be counted as 600 words. At the discretion of the assigned editor, some figures or tables may be counted as more than 600 words.

Manuscripts that exceed the length limit will be un-submitted (returned to the Draft section in Paragon Plus) with a request to shorten, or they may be immediately rejected. To reduce length, make the Introduction and Discussion sections more concise. In addition make appropriate use of Supporting Information (SI; see below), which is also readily available to readers of the manuscripts on the ACS ES&T Water  website.

Authors who believe that exceeding the length limit is essential must include a compelling argument in their cover letters. Ultimately, however, the decision about whether a manuscript that exceeds the recommended length is appropriate for review is made by the assigned editor.

See the list of Acceptable Software and appropriate File Designations to be sure your file types are compatible with ACS Paragon Plus. Information for manuscripts generated from TeX/LaTeX is also available. Please also see Appendix 3 for a list of copyright-compliant graphics programs and graphics websites for the creation of figures, TOC art, and front cover artwork.

A cover letter must accompany every manuscript submission. During the submission process, you may type it or paste it into the submission system, or you may attach it as a file. The cover letter should list the authors and their affiliations, give the manuscript title, and provide complete contact information for all authors. If you have a non-preferred editor, you may explain your reason for making the request in your cover letter. The cover letter must also include a rationale for consideration by ACS ES&T Water , to explain why your manuscript is appropriate for publication in ACS ES&T Water . A substantial fraction of submissions to ACS ES&T Water are not sent out for review because an editor concludes that the manuscript does not meet the journal’s standards for novelty, scientific merit, or environmental importance.  The cover letter is your opportunity to convince the editor that this is not the case.  Citations of previous related work published within ACS ES&T Water also can be useful to the reviewing editor. 

Spell out all acronyms on first use in the abstract and in the body of the article. ACS ES&T Water  does not allow footnotes, with the exception of an author information footnote on the title page and table detail/definition footnotes.

Elements of a Manuscript

The various sections of the manuscript are described in detail below:

• Title and Authorship
• Abstract, Keywords, and Synopsis
• Graphic for Table of Contents (TOC)/Abstract Art
• Introduction
• Experimental/Methods
• Results and Discussion
• Conclusions
• Abbreviations
• Acknowledgment
• Funding Sources
• Tables and Figures
• Formulae and Equations

Chemical Structures

Web enhanced objects (weo).

• Front Cover Artwork

Title. Use a brief, specific, and informative title. Keywords in titles assist in effective literature retrieval. If trade names are used, give generic names in parentheses.

Authorship . List the full first name, middle initial(s), and last name of each author. Omit professional and official titles. An author’s affiliation should be based on where they were when the work was performed. When the present address of an author is different, include the new information in a footnote. In a paper with more than one author, the name of the corresponding author, to whom post-publication inquiries should be addressed, carries an asterisk (*). Provide an email address for the corresponding author.

Many Funders and Institutions require that institutional affiliations are identified for all authors listed in the work being submitted. ACS facilitates this requirement by collecting institution information during the manuscript submission process in ACS Paragon Plus (Step 2 in Paragon Plus: Authors and Affiliations).

Include as co-authors all those who have made a substantial contribution to the work. Addition or deletion of an author(s) after submission of the manuscript requires justification from the corresponding author and is subject to editorial approval. Deceased persons who meet the criteria for inclusion as coauthors should be included, with an Author Information note indicating the date of death.

Abstract, Keywords, and Synopsis .

Abstract. A 150–200-word clear and concise abstract must accompany Research Articles, Review, and Perspective manuscripts. As a one-paragraph summary, describe the purpose, methods or procedures, significant new results, and implications. Define any abbreviations or acronyms used in the abstract. Include major quantitative data if they can be stated briefly, but do not include background material. Do not include reference numbers in the abstract.

For Features, include a 3–5 sentence synopsis titled “Abstract,” written at a level comprehensible to the scientifically literate general public.

Keywords.  Research Articles only must be accompanied by 5–8 keywords. Authors are encouraged to include keywords that do not appear in the title. Indicate the keywords in the cover letter as well as in the manuscript file.

Synopsis. Research Articles only should include a synopsis.  A synopsis is a brief non-technical, succinct explanation (~20 words) of the relevance, impact and implications of your research work to the water research community.  The synopsis should be a complete sentence. The synopsis is NOT a description of the TOC/Abstract graphic.

Graphic for Table of Contents (TOC)/Abstract Art . This graphic, required for a Research Article, Review, and Perspective manuscript, appears next to the abstract online and in all versions of the article.  It is also used in other situations in which a representative graphic is needed (e.g. social media). The selected image should give readers a quick visual representation of the essence of the paper. It should be simple and relatively free of text and technical characters, and make use of color for visual impact. Abstract art may include a photograph of a field site or a schematic portraying the central findings of the paper. Please consult a recent issue of the journal for examples. Guidelines for TOC/Abstract Art specifications are also available. Please also see Appendix 3  for a list of approved graphics programs that have acceptable copyright agreements in place for the commercial use of graphics drawn by the author.

All portions of the TOC graphic must have been created by the authors of the paper. Material not actually created by the authors cannot appear in TOC graphics even if the copyright owner of the material does not want credit.

Size requirement = 240-point width by 135-point height (3.25” x 1.75”; approx. 8.25 cm by 4.45 cm)

Additional specifications:

• Images must be original (not previously published) and created by one of the authors of the paper.
• No copyright, credit, permission, or attribution statements are allowed.
• No captions or legends are permitted.
• Photographs may not show any identifiable individuals unless a model release is provided for ALL identifiable individuals. Any photographs must have been taken by an author of the paper.
• No copyrighted, public domain, Creative Commons license, ClipArt, or stock photo material may be used. 
• No postage stamps, currency, or trademarked items (company or institutional logos, images, and products) may appear in the graphic.
• No maps may be used.
• TOC art is subject to final approval by the assigned editor.
• Authors must certify in their cover letters that they have complied with this TOC art policy and confirm that the submitted image was created by an author and has never been published.

Introduction.

The introduction should clearly and concisely explain the motivation for the work, its importance and originality, where it fits in the development of the field and why it should be of interest to ACS ES&T Water  readers. Discuss relationships of the study to previously published work, but do not reiterate or provide a complete literature survey. Current findings should not be included or summarized in this section. Introduction sections are typically around 500 words in length.

Experimental/Methods.   Describe pertinent and critical factors involved in the experimental work but avoid excessive description. Details not essential for understanding the paper can be placed in Supporting Information (SI).  Specific experimental methods should be sufficiently detailed for others to repeat the experiments unequivocally. List devices of a specialized nature or instruments that may vary in performance or affect the quality of the data obtained (e.g. spectroscopic resolution), including the vendor. If the procedures are already published, provide citations to previous publications and expand only on differences in the current work.   Authors must emphasize any unexpected, new, and/or significant hazards or risks associated with the reported work and this safety information must be included in the Experimental/Methods section. Authors of studies that include results that are compatible with open access data repositories (e.g. NCBI for genomic data) are expected to upload the data and give the accession information.

Results and Discussion.   Be complete but concise. Discuss your findings, postulate explanations for the data, elucidate models and compare your results with those of others.  Avoid irrelevant comparisons or contrasts, any speculation unsupported by the data presented and verbose discussion. 

Conclusions.   Concisely articulate the important findings of your work and their impact on the field of research, aiming for maximum brevity.

Abbreviations. Specialized abbreviations may be used provided they are placed in parentheses after the word(s) at first point of use.  Do not include a separate Abbreviations list.  Use SI units, and consult the The ACS Style Guide for lists of SI units and preferred forms of commonly used abbreviations.

Acknowledgment.   Include only essential credits to acknowledge financial or professional assistance to the conduct of research.  Sources of financial support must be acknowledged.  Omit academic and social titles.  Statements about author contributions to the work or equal contributions of work should be included as a separate statement.

Funding Sources .  Authors are required to report ALL funding sources and grant/award numbers relevant to their manuscript.  To meet this requirement, the submitting author must enter all sources of funding for ALL authors relevant to the submission in BOTH the Open Funder Registry tool in ACS Paragon Plus submission site, and in the manuscript under acknowledgments. See this page  for complete instructions. 

References.   Literature references in ACS ES&T Water  must be numbered in order of appearance, and the corresponding numbers placed at the appropriate locations in the text as superscripted numerals. The accuracy of the References is the responsibility of the authors, who are encouraged to avoid references to works that have not been peer reviewed. DOI numbers are helpful but not mandatory unless they are the only identifying information available (e.g. for recently published articles).  Excessive self-citation is not permitted.  Any references in publications that would be difficult for most reviewers to obtain or are unpublished should be uploaded into the ACS ES&T Engineering Paragon Plus submission site as Information for ‘Review Only’.

Examples of reference formats are available here . Authors can also consult The ACS Style Guide for additional information on reference style and format.

Tables and Figures.

Tables and figures should be carefully designed to maximize presentation and comprehension of the experimental data with superfluous information excluded.   Please see Appendix 3  for a list of approved graphics programs and websites that have acceptable copyright agreements in place for commercial use of graphics and images.

Tables . Tables should be simple, concise, and supplement, not duplicate, information presented in the text and figures.  Tables should be embedded in the text at the point of relevance, and be furnished with appropriate titles of one phrase or sentence. The title should be understandable without reference to the text.  Details or definitions should be placed at the bottom as footnotes. Tables should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numbers (i.e., 1, 2, …). Double-space them with wide margins, ensure that each data entry is placed in its own cell, and prepare tables in a consistent format, preferably using a word processor’s table format feature.

Figures. Please see Appendix 2  for further details on how to prepare your figure graphics and Appendix 3 for a list of approved graphics programs and websites that have acceptable copyright agreements in place for the commercial use of drawn graphics and copied images. All figure graphics must be prepared and submitted in digital format and preferably embedded in the text at the point of relevance. Graphics should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numbers (i.e. 1, 2, ) and accompanied by a caption. It is also acceptable to submit separate TIFF, PDF, EPS (vector artwork), or CDX (ChemDraw file) files. If separate graphic files are submitted, they should be named in a manner clearly identifying their function (e.g. Scheme 1, Figure 1). Each separate graphic file must also include the caption for the respective graphic in the manuscript itself.

Each figure graphic should have good resolution, be clear, concise, and complete and use legible font. Colors may be used to enhance graphics. Graphics must meet the journal’s minimum quality standards or will be returned to authors for improvement. Any graphic (figure, chart, scheme or equation) that has appeared in an earlier publication should include a credit line citing the original source.  Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission to re-use this material.

Special requirements for EPS and TIFF files graphics (both when embedded in a Word file and when submitted separately):

• EPS files: All fonts must be converted to outlines or embedded in the graphic file. The document settings should be in RGB mode.
• TIFF files: Black & white line art must have a resolution of 1200 dpi; grayscale art (a monochromatic image containing shades of gray) must have a resolution of 600 dpi; and color art (RGB color mode) must have a resolution of 300 dpi.

In addition, ACS Authoring Services  can prepare your figures, tables and illustrations to the exact specifications of the journal on your behalf. This includes changes to file type, resolution, color, space, font, scale, line weights and layout (to improve readability and professional appearance).

Formulae and Equations . Chemical formulas should be embedded in the text at the point of relevance and should correspond to the The ACS Style Guide . Chemical equations should be balanced and numbered consecutively along with mathematical equations. Mathematical arguments should be as brief as possible.

Chemical Structures.  Chemical structures should be produced with the use of a drawing program such as ChemDraw.

The web editions of ACS journals allow readers to review multimedia attachments such as animations and movies that complement understanding of the research being reported.  WEOs should be uploaded in ACS Paragon Plus with ‘Web Enhanced Object’ selected as the file designation.  Consult the list of compatible WEO formats. 

Supporting Information.   Ancillary data and material of interest mainly to specialists is placed in Supporting Information to shorten the length of text in research manuscripts.  Please see the section on Supporting Information (SI) (Optional) for further details below.

Front Cover Artwork.   ACS ES&T Water  features a different image on the front cover of each issue. The cover art image is usually related to work that is published in that particular issue of the journal.  Authors are encouraged to submit images to be considered for use on future front covers at the time of submission of their revised manuscript.

Images to be considered for the cover should be eye-catching, imaginative and original.  Unpublished images are encouraged.  Covers should be submitted as an electronic file in eps, tif, jpg, or png format (not pdf or ppt), and be approximately 8 inches wide and 11 inches high, with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi (color) (2400 x 3300 pixels). The file should be sent as a layered file to enable art enhancement of individual elements. The top 3 inches of the cover image will be obscured by the journal logo, and the bottom 1 inch will be obscured by the ACS Publications bar. Authors should also include a 5-10 word caption that will appear on the front cover, and a short (less than 50 words) description of the cover that will be published alongside the image. Examples of previous ACS ES&T Water  covers can be seen at https://pubs.acs.org/loi/aewcaa .

If the image has been previously published, authors should include a signed permission form from the publisher to reprint the image in all media formats (print and electronic).  See Copyright and Permissions on the ACS Paragon Plus website for more information.  If your art is selected for front cover, ACS will send you information about how to request one complimentary 18” by 24” printed poster featuring your work.

ACS ES&T Water  also offers authors a great way to promote their work through Supplementary Covers . Submit your cover idea, artwork, and caption when submitting your manuscript revision in ACS Paragon Plus.  If your article is accepted for publication, your suggestion may be selected for use on one of the journal’s supplementary covers.

Disclosures

The corresponding author must reveal any potential and/or relevant competing financial or other interest (of all authors) that might be affected by publication of the results contained in the manuscript. Potential conflicts of interest and sources of funding of the research reported must be clearly stated at the time of manuscript submission and included in the Acknowledgments. If no potential for a conflict of interest is declared, the following statement will be published in the article: “The authors declare no competing financial interest.” See the ACS Ethical Guidelines for additional details.

This information is provided to the reviewers during the peer-review process (for Review Only) and is available to readers of the published work (for Publication). Supporting Information must be submitted at the same time as the manuscript. See the list of Acceptable Software by File Designation and confirm that your Supporting Information is viewable .

If the manuscript is accompanied by any supporting information files for publication, these files will be made available free of charge to readers. A brief, nonsentence description of the actual contents of each file, including the file type extension, is required. This description should be labeled Supporting Information and should appear before the Acknowledgement and Reference sections. Examples of sufficient and insufficient descriptions are as follows:

Examples of sufficient descriptions: “Supporting Information: 1 H NMR spectra for all compounds (PDF)” or “Additional experimental details, materials, and methods, including photographs of experimental setup (DOC)”.

Examples of insufficient descriptions: “Supporting Information: Figures S1-S3” or “Additional figures as mentioned in the text”.

When including supporting information for review only, include copies of references that are unpublished or in-press. These files are available only to editors and reviewers.

All ACS journals strongly encourage authors to make the research data underlying their articles publicly available at the time of publication.

Research data is defined as materials and information used in the experiments that enable the validation of the conclusions drawn in the article, including primary data produced by the authors for the study being reported, secondary data reused or analyzed by the authors for the study, and any other materials necessary to reproduce or replicate the results.

The ACS Research Data Policy provides additional information on Data Availability Statements, Data Citation, and Data Repositories.

Nomenclature.

Use abbreviations and acronyms sparingly, and all usage should be defined at the first occurrence in the text. Whenever possible, use systematic nomenclature as recommended by IUPAC and IUBMB for chemical compounds and biomolecules. Names of organisms should comply with genetic conventions, with genus and species names written in italics and spelled out in full on first appearance.

Database Deposition.  

Advancing scientific discoveries can be enhanced when data and materials are made available and readily exchanged. ACS ES&T Water  requires for all published articles that authors make materials, data, and protocols available to readers through deposition in a public database. In addition, ACS Publications’ figshare houses all Supporting Information within the HTML presentation of the paper and at acs.figshare.com . Authors may want to further investigate Dryad or institutional repositories for depositing data. Authors also agree to make available to interested academic researchers for their own use any materials reported in the manuscript that are not otherwise obtainable. Any restrictions to the availability of materials or information must be stated at the time of submission. The ACS Math Style Sheet and NMR Guidelines are available on the ACS Publishing Center.

Use of Human Subjects or Animals in Research.

The American Chemical Society Publications rules and ethical guidelines provide mandatory standards of practice in experimental studies performed using biological samples obtained from animals or human subjects. Studies submitted for publication approval must present evidence that the described experimental activities have undergone local institutional review assessing safety and humane usage of study subject animals. In the case of human subjects authors must also provide a statement that study samples were obtained through the informed consent of the donors, or in lieu of that evidence, by the authority of the institutional board that licensed the use of such material. The institution’s name and approved IRB number must be listed in the paper. Papers that include any aspect of Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) or citizen science must include information on practices employed protects vulnerable populations.  

Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT)

CRediT is a high-level taxonomy used to identify and acknowledge the roles played by contributors to scientific scholarly output. During original submission and/or revision, there are 14 standard roles from which the submitting author can select to describe the specific contributions of each author. At this time, CRediT is optional for authors. Please note that author CRediT information will not transfer if the manuscript is transferred to a non-pilot journal. Click here to learn more about the ACS CRediT pilot .

A well-written paper helps share your results most clearly. The English in all submissions must meet the journal’s minimum standards for publication. Manuscripts containing numerous errors in grammar and word choice can frustrate reviewers and make the review process challenging. ACS Publications’ English Editing Service is designed to help scientists communicate their research effectively. Although using such a service does not guarantee acceptance of a manuscript, they may help in clarifying the significance of your research as well as editing your manuscript for grammar, spelling and other language errors to your ideas are presented at their best.

The quality of illustrations in ACS journals and partner journals depends on the quality of the original files provided by the authors. Figures are not modified or enhanced by journal production staff. All graphics must be prepared and submitted in digital format.

Graphics should be inserted into the main body whenever possible. Please see Appendix 2 for additional information.

Any graphic (figure chart, scheme, or equation) that has appeared in an earlier publication should include a credit line citing the original source. Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission to re-use this material.

The impact of your research is not limited to what you can express with words. Tables and figures such as graphs, photographs, illustrations, diagrams, and other visuals can play a significant role in effectively communicating your findings. Our Artwork Editing and Graphical Abstract services generate publication-ready figures and Table of Contents (TOC) graphics that conform to your chosen journal’s specifications. For figures, this includes changes to file type, resolution, color space, font, scale, line weights, and layout (to improve readability and professional appearance). For TOC graphics, our illustrators can work with a rough sketch or concept or help extract the key findings of your manuscript directly for use as a visual summary of your paper.

Preparing for Submission

Manuscripts, graphics, supporting information, and required forms, as well as manuscript revisions, must all be submitted in digital format through ACS Paragon Plus , which requires an ACS ID to log in. Registering for an ACS ID is fast, free, and does not require an ACS membership. Please refer to Appendix 1 for additional information on preparing your submission

ACS ES&T Water considers only original work for publication that has not been previously published and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Related work under consideration for publication in any medium must be cited in the manuscript and the Editor-in-Chief informed at the time of submission. In addition, an author must inform the Editor-in-Chief of prior dissemination of the content in print or electronic formats in the cover letter. Posting of pre-prints to a pre-print server such as ChemRxiv , bioR X iv, arXiv, or applicable repository for their discipline before the manuscript is accepted for publication is considered acceptable but requires citing of the pre-print. Authors may revise the preprint version of their manuscript up until a final acceptance decision has been issued.  Please note the use of a pre-print server in the cover letter and provide a link to the preprint, and as appropriate, state how the manuscript has been adjusted/updated between deposition and submission. All other prior/redundant publication is forbidden. Failure to alert ACS ES&T Water in your cover letter to any prior publication of your submission may be viewed as an ethical violation. Upon publication in ACS ES&T Water , authors are advised to add a link from the pre-print to the published paper via the Digital Object Identified (DOI) that is assigned to the published article. Some preprint servers, including ChemRxiv and bioR X iv, include this link for authors automatically after publication.

Theses/Dissertations .

Authors submitting material that has been used in their thesis/dissertation must contact the Editor-in-Chief for approval. Authors will be asked to confirm that they alone hold the copyright to the work and to read and comply with the ACS dissertation policy , and the conditions and procedures laid out in the ACS Journal Publishing Agreement (JPA). Authors will also need to make arrangements with their degree-granting institution (and any repositories to which their thesis/dissertation has been or will be posted) to either delay posting of the thesis/dissertation or remove the material from the Internet until the final paper is published by ACS ES&T Water  (i.e. the work is considered under embargo). Finally, they will need to properly cite the ACS ES&T Water article in any versions of the thesis/dissertation made publically available after the embargo period.

Authors wishing to include published ACS ES&T Water  material in their thesis/dissertation should follow the guidelines of the ACS dissertation policy. They must contact the Editor-in-Chief for permission, and properly cite and link to the published ACS ES&T Water  article. Permission requests for all ACS Journal materials are handled through the RightsLink service. Please see the RightsLink instructions for complete details:  https://pubs.acs.org/page/copyright/rightslink.html .

Proceedings of conferences and symposia .

Authors cannot publish presentations in proceedings (paper or electronic) that are copyrighted (except by ACS) and then submit them to ACS ES&T Water  due to copyright concerns. If the proceedings are not copyrighted, publishing a short abstract without figures or tables is permissible. It is the responsibility of authors to notify ACS ES&T Water  of any abstracts that have been published in any form.

ACS ES&T Water  will consider for publication a paper or presentation that has been posted on a website available to the general public, provided that the site is the personal site of the author and is not connected to a commercial site. Authors must notify the journal at the time of submission if the material has been available on the Internet or equivalent electronic media and must remove the material from the site at the time of submission. When the paper is published, authors may provide an electronic link from that site to the ACS ES&T Water  homepage. If the website is a commercial site not owned by ACS, the authors are advised that consideration of the paper may be endangered.

Authors must confirm that they alone hold the copyright to the report. If a government or funding organization requires posting of a related report, please contact the Editor-in-Chief and provide specific details.

Submitting Revised Manuscripts and Response to Reviewers

If you are submitting a revised manuscript or an authorized resubmission of a manuscript that was already peer reviewed, you must submit point-by-point responses to each of the comments of the reviewers. We recommend that you copy the reviewer’s comment into the text immediately prior to your response. You should also upload, as ‘Information for Review Only’, a version of the manuscript with changes highlighted to allow the editor to easily discern the revisions that have been made.

Resubmission of Previously Declined Manuscripts to ACS ES&T Water

If your manuscript is declined by ACS ES&T Water , read the decision letter carefully. Manuscripts are often declined because the editor determines that the subject matter is not appropriate for ACS ES&T Water  or that the novelty or significance of the manuscript is insufficient.  If the author believes an error has been made, ACS ES&T Water  has a process for appealing decisions on manuscripts, which is described in the Appeal Process section of this Guide. If you wish to submit a revised version of a declined manuscript to ACS ES&T Water , you must first contact the associate editor who handled your original submission to request permission to resubmit.

If you receive permission to resubmit, indicate in your cover letter that it is an authorized revision of a previously submitted manuscript, provide the original manuscript number, and state how the manuscript has changed. If the manuscript was reviewed, submit a detailed, point-by-point list of your responses to each of the comments of the reviewers or provide convincing reasons for declining to do so. The manuscript should be submitted online (see the Manuscript Submission section of this Guide, below), where it will receive a new manuscript number. During the submission process, mark “Yes” when asked if the manuscript has been previously submitted “in whole or in part.” Manuscripts that editors judge to be resubmissions, in whole or in part, of previously submitted manuscripts that do not comply with these rules will not be considered for publication. Moreover, failure to alert ACS ES&T Water  to a resubmission, even in part, is an ethical violation.

Please suggest 4 reviewers. Authors are encouraged to avoid suggesting reviewers from the authors’ institutions. Do not suggest reviewers who may have a real or perceived conflict of interest . Whenever possible, suggest academic email addresses rather than personal email addresses.

If your submission is declined for publication by this journal, the editors might deem your work to be better suited for another ACS Publications journal or partner journal and suggest that the authors consider transferring the submission. Manuscript Transfer simplifies and shortens the process of submitting to another ACS journal or partner journal, as all the coauthors, suggested reviewers, manuscript files, and responses to submission questions are copied by ACS Paragon Plus to the new draft submission. Authors are free to accept or decline the transfer offer. Once a transfer is accepted, authors will then complete the submission to the new journal in ACS Paragon Plus.

During the transfer submission process, authors will have the opportunity to revise the manuscript and address comments received from editors or reviewers. Requirements of the new journal may be different, so authors should also check the Author Guidelines for the new journal and make any needed revisions in order to conform to those requirements. Please keep in mind that the reviews, reviewer identities, and decision letter will all be transferred to the new journal. Authors are encouraged to identify changes made to the manuscript in a cover letter for the new journal.

Note that each journal is editorially independent. Transferring a manuscript is not a guarantee that the manuscript will be accepted, as the final publication decision will belong to the editor of the next journal.

PRODUCTION AND PUBLICATION

Correction of the galley proofs is the responsibility of the Corresponding Author. The Corresponding Author of an accepted manuscript will receive e-mail notification and complete instructions when page proofs are available for review via ACS Direct Correct  (or via production of a list of corrections). Extensive or important changes on page proofs, including changes to the title or list of authors, are subject to review by the editor.

It is the responsibility of the Corresponding Author to ensure that all authors listed on the manuscript agree with the changes made on the proofs. Galley proofs should be returned within 48 hours in order to ensure timely publication of the manuscript.

Accepted manuscripts will be published on the ACS Publications Web site as an ASAP (As Soon As Publishable, see below) publication as soon as page proofs are corrected and all author concerns are resolved. The first date on which the document is published on the web as an ASAP is considered the publication date.

Publication of manuscripts on the web as an ASAP may occur weeks in advance of the cover date of the issue of publication. Authors should take this into account when planning their patent and intellectual property activities related to a document and should ensure that all patent information is available at the time of first publication, whether ASAP or issue publication. ASAP manuscripts do not receive information on the designated journal issue number for final publication or page number information. This is only available once the manuscript is assigned to a final issue.

All articles published ahead of print receive a unique Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number, which is used to cite the manuscript before and after the paper appears in an issue. Additionally, any supplemental information submitted along with the manuscript will automatically be assigned a DOI and hosted on Figshare to promote open data discoverability and use of your research outputs.

As Soon As Publishable (ASAP) manuscripts will be published on the “ASAP Articles” page on the web as soon as page proofs are corrected and all author concerns are resolved. ASAP publication usually occurs within a few working days of receipt of page proof corrections.  Following publication as an ASAP manuscript, manuscripts are then finally published in an issue and given page numbers.  Articles appear on the web approximately 10 days before the printed version is available for distribution. 

The American Chemical Society follows guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) when considering any ethical concerns regarding a published article, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern.

Additions and Corrections

Additions and Corrections may be requested by the author(s) or initiated by the Editor to address important issues or correct errors and omissions of consequence that arise after publication of an article. All Additions and Corrections are subject to approval by the Editor, and should bring new and directly relevant information and corrections that fix scientific facts. Minor corrections and additions will not be published. Readers who detect errors of consequence in the work of others should contact the corresponding author of that work.

Additions and Corrections must be submitted as new manuscripts via ACS Paragon Plus by the Corresponding Author for publication in the “Addition/Correction” section of the Journal. The corresponding author should obtain approval from all coauthors prior to submitting or provide evidence that such approval has been solicited. The manuscript should include the original article title and author list, citation including DOI, and details of the correction.

Retractions

Articles may be retracted for scientific or ethical reasons and may be requested by the article author(s) or by the journal Editor(s), but are ultimately published at the discretion of the Editor. Articles that contain seriously flawed or erroneous data such that their findings and conclusions cannot be relied upon may be retracted in order to correct the scientific record. When an article is retracted, a notice of Retraction will be published containing information about the reason for the Retraction. The originally published article will remain online except in extraordinary circumstances (e.g. where deemed legally necessary, or if the availability of the published content poses public health risks).

If you believe you may need to retract your published ACS ES&T Water article, please email the Editor-in-Chief ( [email protected] ), copying the Managing Editor ( [email protected] ), with an explanation of the reason(s) for retraction.

Expressions of Concern

Expressions of Concern may be issued at the discretion of the Editor if:

• there is inconclusive evidence of research or publication misconduct by the authors;
• there is evidence that the findings are unreliable but the authors’ institution will not investigate the case;
• an investigation into alleged misconduct related to the publication either has not been, or would not be, fair and impartial or conclusive;
• an investigation is underway but a judgment will not be available for a considerable time.

Upon completion of any related investigation, and when a final determination is made about the outcome of the article, the Expression of Concern may be replaced with a Retraction notice or Correction.

At ACS Publications, we know it is important for you to be able to share your published work with colleagues in the global community of scientists. As sharing on sites known as scholarly collaboration networks (SCNs) is becoming increasingly prevalent in today’s scholarly research ecosystem, we would like to remind you of the many ways you can share your published work, including:

•  Decide to publish your work Open Access (also see Open Access information in Appendix 1)
• Use the free ACS Articles on Request (e-prints) to point readers to your article (see e-prints section above)
• Share your work via scholarly collaboration networks (SCNs).  Your Journal Publishing Agreement (JPA) with the American Chemical Society enables you to share your published research with colleagues by:

a) Depositing a copy of your accepted peer-reviewed manuscript to online repositories for non-commercial purposes

b) Promoting your research and related data on social media, at conferences, and through scholarly communication networks, or use in teaching or in-house materials

c) Sharing your article’s supporting information via the ACS Publications website.  ACS has partnered with Figshare so it’s easy for ACS authors to download, share, cite or embed your data. The "How Can I Share It" website offers an overview of available sharing platforms and outlines how and where you can share you publications responsibly.  The following resources can also help to increase the impact of your research: Altmetrics , ACS Certified Deposit

d) Using ACS Publications' easy way to share your newly published research with ACS Articles on Request (see E-Prints below)

When your article is published in an ACS journal or partner journal, corresponding authors are provided with a link that offers up to 50 free digital prints of the final published work. This link is valid for the first 12 months following online publication, and can be shared via email or an author’s website. After one year, the access restrictions to your article will be lifted, and you can share the Articles on Request URL on social media and other channels. To access all your Articles on Request links, log in to your ACS Publishing Center account and visit the “My Published Manuscripts” page.

Article , journal , and commercial reprints are available to order.

Appendix 1: PREPARING FOR SUBMISSION

We’ve developed ACS’ publishing and editorial policies in consultation with the research communities that we serve, including authors and librarians. Browse our policies below to learn more.

Ethical Guidelines

ACS editors have provided Ethical Guidelines for persons engaged in the publication of chemical research—specifically, for editors, authors, and reviewers. Each journal also has a specific policy on prior publication .

OFAC Compliance

As a U.S.-based non-profit organization, the American Chemical Society (ACS) is required to comply with U.S. sanctions laws and regulations administered by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). While these laws and regulations permit U.S.-based publishers like ACS to engage in publishing-related activities with authors located in sanctioned regions in many cases, ACS may be prohibited under U.S. law from engaging in publishing-related activities in some cases, including, but not limited to, instances where an author or the institution with which an author is affiliated is located in a particular sanctioned region or has been designated by OFAC as a Specially Designated National (SDN) pursuant to certain U.S. sanctions programs. ACS reserves the right to refrain from engaging in any publishing-related activities that ACS determines in its sole discretion may be in violation of U.S. law.

Safety Considerations

Authors must emphasize any unexpected, new, and/or significant hazards or risks associated with the reported work. This information should be in the Experimental Section of a full article and included in the main text of a letter. Statement examples can be found in the Safety Statement Style Sheet  and additional information on communicating safety information from the  ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication is freely available here .

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

A statement describing any financial conflicts of interest or lack thereof is published in each ACS journal and partner journal article.

During the submission process, the Corresponding Author must provide a statement on behalf of all authors of the manuscript, describing all potential sources of bias, including affiliations, funding sources, and financial or management relationships, that may constitute conflicts of interest. If the manuscript is accepted, the statement will be published in the final article.

If the manuscript is accepted and no conflict of interest has been declared, the following statement will be published in the final article: “The authors declare no competing financial interest.”

In publishing only original research, ACS is committed to deterring plagiarism, including self-plagiarism. ACS Publications uses CrossCheck's iThenticate software to screen submitted manuscripts for similarity to published material. Note that your manuscript may be screened during the submission process.

Further information about plagiarism can be found in Part B of the Ethical Guidelines to Publication of Chemical Research . See also the press release regarding ACS' participation in the CrossCheck initiative.

Authorship, Author List, and Coauthor Notification

Authors are required to obtain the consent of all their coauthors prior to submitting a manuscript. The submitting author accepts the responsibility of notifying all coauthors that the manuscript is being submitted.

During manuscript submission, the submitting author must provide contact information (full name, email address, institutional affiliation, and mailing address) for all of the coauthors. Because all of the author names are automatically imported into the electronic Journal Publishing Agreement , the names must be entered into ACS Paragon Plus. (Note that coauthors are not required to register in ACS Paragon Plus.) Author affiliation should reflect where the work was completed, even if the author has since left that institution. Authors may include a note with a current address if their institution has changed since the work was completed.

To expedite the processing of your manuscript, please format your author and affiliation information according the guidelines in this link: https://pubsapp.acs.org/paragonplus/submission/author-address-information.pdf .

Criteria for authorship can be found in Part B of the Ethical Guidelines to Publication of Chemical Research . Artificial intelligence (AI) tools do not qualify for authorship. The use of AI tools for text or image generation should be disclosed in the manuscript within the Acknowledgment section with a description of when and how the tools were used. For more substantial use cases or descriptions of AI tool use, authors should provide full details within the Methods or other appropriate section of the manuscript.

If any change in authorship is necessary after a manuscript has been submitted, confirmation is required that all of the authors (including those being added or removed) have been notified and have agreed to the change. To provide this confirmation, authors are asked to complete and sign an authorship change form and provide the completed form to the appropriate editorial office.

Authors with a single name:  If you, or any of your coauthors, have only one name, please follow these steps for proper submission to ACS Paragon Plus:

• First (Given) Name Field: Enter an asterisk (*) into the "First (Given) Name" field.
• Last (Family) Name Field: Enter your single name into the "Last (Family) Name" field.

If your paper is accepted, the asterisk (*) will be removed from the published version of the paper.

Patent Activities and Intellectual Property

Authors are responsible for ensuring that all patent activities and intellectual property issues are satisfactorily resolved prior to first publication (ASAP or in issue). Acceptance and publication will not be delayed for pending or unresolved issues of this nature.

Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID)

Authors submitting manuscript revisions are required to provide their own personal, validated ORCID iD before completing the submission, if an ORCID iD is not already associated with their ACS Paragon Plus user profiles. This ID may be provided during original manuscript submission or when submitting the manuscript revision. All authors are strongly encouraged to register for an ORCID iD, a unique researcher identifier. The ORCID iD will be displayed in the published article for any author on a manuscript who has a validated ORCID iD associated with ACS when the manuscript is accepted.

ORCID iDs should not be typed into the manuscript. ACS publishes only those ORCID iDs that have been properly verified and linked before the manuscript is accepted . After your ORCID iD is linked, it will be displayed automatically in all subsequently accepted manuscripts for any/all ACS journals. We do not publish ORCID iDs provided during proof review or via other communications after a manuscript is accepted for publication.

With an ORCID iD, you can create a profile of your research activities to distinguish yourself from other researchers with similar names, and make it easier for your colleagues to find your publications. If you do not yet have an ORCID iD, or you wish to associate your existing ORCID iD with your ACS Paragon Plus account, you may do so by clicking on “Edit Your Profile” from your ACS Paragon Plus account homepage and following the ORCID-related links. Learn more at www.orcid.org .

Copyright and Permissions

To obtain forms and guidelines for completing the Journal Publishing Agreement or obtaining permissions from copyright owners, and to explore a Copyright Learning Module for chemists, click here .

Funder Reporting Requirement

Authors are required to report funding sources and grant/award numbers. Enter ALL sources of funding for ALL authors in BOTH the Funder Registry Tool in ACS Paragon Plus and in your manuscript to meet this requirement.

Open Access Compliance

ACS offers options by which authors can fulfill the requirements for open access and deposition into repositories for funded research. Visit our ACS Open Science site to see how to fulfill requirements for specific funders  and to find out if you are eligible to publish under a Read + Publish agreement between ACS and your institution. You can also find out more about Open Access Compliance and ACS Open Science initiatives .

Diversity and Inclusion Statement

During manuscript submission, ACS journal authors have the option to submit a statement sharing information related to diversity and inclusion that is relevant for their paper. If supplying a diversity and inclusion statement, the corresponding author must provide this on behalf of all authors of the manuscript during the submission process. These statements include but are not limited to analysis of citation diversity and acknowledgment of indigenous land on which research was conducted. Statements expressing political beliefs are not permitted and may be removed by the journal office. All statements are subject to final review by the Editor.

• Citation Diversity Statement: The citation diversity statement should appear in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript. ACS recommends including the following: (1) the importance of citation diversity, (2) the proportion of citations by gender and race/ethnicity for the first and last authors, (3) the method used to determine those proportions and its limitations, and (4) steps taken to by the authors to improve citation diversity in the article. We recognize that one limitation of the current methods is that it cannot account for intersex, non-binary, and transgender people, or Indigenous and mixed-race authors. (Adapted from BMES/Springer Guidelines )
• Land acknowledgment: The land acknowledgment statement should appear in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript. The statement should link to the institutions’ formal land acknowledgments on which the research took place, if possible. Further guidance for creating these statements can be found here: https://nativegov.org/news/a-guide-to-indigenous-land-acknowledgment/ .

Appendix 2: Preparing Graphics

Digital graphics pasted into manuscripts should have the following minimum resolutions:

• Black and white line art, 1200 dpi
• Grayscale art, 600 dpi
• Color art, 300 dpi

Graphics must fit a one- or two-column format. Single-column graphics can be sized up to 240 points wide (3.33 in.) and double-column graphics must be sized between 300 and 504 points (4.167 in. and 7 in.). The maximum depth for all graphics is 660 points (9.167 in.) including the caption (allow 12 pts. For each line of caption text). Lettering should be no smaller than 4.5 points in the final published format. The text should be legible when the graphic is viewed full-size. Helvetica or Arial fonts work well for lettering. Lines should be no thinner than 0.5 point.

Color may be used to enhance the clarity of complex structures, figures, spectra, and schemes, etc., and color reproduction of graphics is provided at no additional cost to the author. Graphics intended to appear in black and white or grayscale should not be submitted in color.

Type of Graphics

Table of contents (toc)/abstract graphic.

Consult the Guidelines for Table of Contents/Abstract Graphics for specifications.

Our team of subject-matter experts and graphical designers can also help generate a compelling TOC graphic to convey your key findings. Learn more about our Graphical Abstract service .

A caption giving the figure number and a brief description must be included below each figure. The caption should be understandable without reference to the text. It is preferable to place any key to symbols used in the artwork itself, not in the caption. Ensure that any symbols and abbreviations used in the text agree with those in the artwork.

Charts (groups of structures that do not show reactions) may have a brief caption describing their contents.

Each table must have a brief (one phrase or sentence) title that describes the contents. The title should be understandable without reference to the text. Details should be put in footnotes, not in the title. Tables should be used when the data cannot be presented clearly in the narrative, when many numbers must be presented, or when more meaningful inter-relationships can be conveyed by the tabular format. Tables should supplement, not duplicate, information presented in the text and figures. Tables should be simple and concise.

Each scheme (sequences of reactions) may have a brief caption describing its contents.

Chemical structures should be produced with the use of a drawing program such as ChemDraw.

ACS ES&T Water  features a different image on the front cover of each issue.  The cover art image is usually related to work that is published in that particular issue of the journal.  Authors are encouraged to submit images to be considered for use on future front covers at the time of submitting their revised manuscripts.

Images to be considered for the cover should be eye-catching, imaginative and original.  Unpublished images are encouraged.  Covers should be submitted as an electronic file in eps, tif, jpg, or png format (not pdf or ppt), and be at least 8.19 inches wide and 10 inches high, with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi (color) (2400 x 3300 pixels).  The file should be sent as a layered file to enable art enhancement of individual elements. The top 3 inches of the cover image will be obscured by the journal logo.  Authors should also include a 5-10 word caption that will appear on the front cover, and a short (less than 50 words) description of the cover that will be published alongside the image.

ACS ES&T Water  also offers authors to promote their work through Supplementary Covers . Submit your cover idea, artwork, and caption when submitting your manuscript revision in ACS Paragon Plus. If your article is accepted for publication, your suggestion may be selected for use on one of the journal’s supplementary covers. All art submitted for consideration for a supplementary cover will also be considered for a front cover.

Appendix 3: Approved Graphics Programs

The Web editions of ACS journals allow readers to view multimedia attachments such as animations and movies that complement understanding of the research being reported.

WEOs should be uploaded in ACS Paragon Plus with ‘Web Enhanced Object’ selected as the file designation. Consult the list of compatible WEO formats .

Approved Graphics Programs and Websites with Compliant Copyright Licenses for Commercial Use

To comply with copyright rules, the following websites and graphics programs have copyright license wording that is acceptable to allow commercial use of their images and created graphics.  It remains the responsibility of the author to obtain or purchase the correct copyright license agreement from the recommended vendors listed below.

• iStock (standard license)
• Frontier Media (authors own copyright and allow CC-BY license)
• Adobe (standard license)
• TurboSquid (royalty free license)
• Cinema4D (www.maxon.net)
• Freeimages.com
• Autodesk 3DS Max 2015 software
• Dreamstime.com
• Microsoft ClipArt
• Wordclouds.com
• openclipart.org (CC-BY - allows commercial use)
• Shutterstock (standard license)
• eLife Science (creative commons license)
• Megapixel (royalty free license)
• Protein Database
• Visual Molecular Dynamics (VMD)
• gettyimages.com
• QGIS software (uses GNU General Public licenses)
• "R" software (uses GNU General Public license)
• SVG Map v 1.5
• Avogadro Software
• 3D Sketchup Software
• Affinity Designer (v 1.7, Serif Europe Ltd.)
• dreamgenerator.com
• National Gallery of Art/NGA Images. With the launch of NGA Images, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC implements an open access policy for digital images of works of art that the Gallery believes to be in the public domain. Images of these works are now available free of charge for any use, commercial or non-commercial. Users do not need to contact the Gallery for authorization to use these images as long as credit is given to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. The images are available for download at the NGA Images website ( images.nga.gov ).

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Universities Council on Water Resources

Author Guidelines

PUBLICATION SCHEDULE

The  Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education  ( JCWRE ) is published three times per year. Issues are published in April, August, and December, unless unforeseen circumstances occur. Two themed issues a year (typically April and December) focus on topics that emerge from conferences, water resources organizations, national training or education programs, and research and extension teams.  One issue per year (typically August) is reserved for general submissions. JCWRE  is published by the Universities Council on Water Resources (UCOWR) and is available online at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1936704x .

SUBMISSION DEADLINES

JCWRE  is currently accepting submissions for consideration. Manuscripts can be submitted at any time. Most general submissions are published in the August issue which is designated for open submissions. However, general submissions may be considered for themed issues if appropriate. If accepted before the issue is published, the article will be published as a sneak peek on our website ( https://ucowr.org/journal/jcwre-sneak-peek/ ). Manuscripts should be submitted by October 15 to be considered for the April issue; February 15 to be considered for the August issue; and June 15 to be considered for the December issue.

PUBLICATION FEE

$300 for UCOWR members $500 for non-UCOWR members These fees are subject to change.

There is no fee for publication of a Perspective Piece. All other articles, including those accepted to Themed Issues, are charged standard publication fees.

AUTHOR INSTRUCTIONS

JCWRE publishes articles in five categories. Click on the category of your manuscript and follow the author instructions carefully. Your manuscript will not be considered for publication unless it follows the manuscript requirements.

• JCWRE accepts Original Research articles on applied research, policy, education, and outreach/extension in water and watershed science and management. Original Research articles are peer reviewed and subject to standard publication fees.
• JCWRE accepts Case Studies on applied research, policy, education, and outreach/extension in water and watershed science and management. Case Studies differ from an Original Research article in that Case Studies are “example” applications of concepts, tools, and models. The purpose of this category is to allow professionals to share new ideas, projects, or new applications of previously published research. Similar to an Original Research article, authors must identify how the research contributes to the existing literature. Case study articles are peer reviewed and subject to standard publication fees.
• JCWRE accepts comprehensive reviews of applied research, policy, education, and outreach/extension in water and watershed science and management. Review articles are peer reviewed and subject to standard publication fees.
• JCWRE accepts succinct Research Notes on applied research, policy, education, and outreach/extension in water and watershed science and management. Research Notes provide brief research communications, shorter than an Original Research article, and limited in scope. Examples of a Research Note would be to introduce a new method and/or compare existing methods, to report on preliminary data that may have a significant impact in the author’s field, or to provide an update to previously published data. Research Notes are peer reviewed and subject to standard publication fees.
• JCWRE accepts Perspective Pieces on applied research, policy, education, and outreach/extension in water and watershed science and management. Perspective Pieces are commentaries on current water issues from experts in the field. The editorial staff review Perspective Pieces internally. Those interested in writing a Perspective Piece should e-mail a one-page proposal to crimjac@siu.edu. There is no fee for publishing Perspective Pieces.

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Journal Information

PLOS Water connects researchers across the hydrology, water resources, and water, sanitation and hygiene communities, amplifying a diverse set of voices to influence the global discourse around fresh water. Our journal drives Open Science water research forward to foster a deeper understanding of these interconnected issues, and to empower researchers, local and Indigenous communities, water professionals, and organizations from across the globe to take positive, evidence-based action in order to address some of the most pressing issues our planet faces.

PLOS Water is an open-access journal that brings together research relevant to the study of water for people and planet. Our broad scope brings together diverse water research communities to promote multidisciplinary research and facilitate collaboration between the interconnected fields of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and water resources. 

PLOS Water publishes primary research conducted in a transparent, ethically and methodologically rigorous manner that contributes to the base of academic knowledge on a diverse range of water-related topics. These areas include water treatment, contamination, purification, quality, consumption, recycling, scarcity and supply, conservation, infrastructure, technology and engineering, applied governance and policy, equity, access, and environmental impacts, as well as ecosystem approaches, socio-behavioral, and economic studies relevant to these areas. 

All researchers who play a role in this global issue — including academics, government agencies, professional and community organizations, engineers, and water professionals — are encouraged to submit their research to the journal. We consider articles reporting primary research performed in a variety of settings and welcome laboratory, field, and computational work as well as systematic reviews, replication studies, and negative or null results.

PLOS Water publishes primary Research Articles , as well as occasional  Editorials, Opinions, and Reviews .

Criteria for Publication

• The study presents the results of original research .
• Results reported have not been published elsewhere.
• Experiments, statistics, and other analyses are performed to a high technical standard and are described in sufficient detail.
• Conclusions are presented in an appropriate fashion and are supported by the data.
• The article is presented in an intelligible fashion and is written in standard English.
• The research meets all applicable standards for the ethics of experimentation and research integrity.
• The article adheres to appropriate reporting guidelines and community standards for data availability.

Editorial Oversight

The Editors-in-Chief and Executive Editor partner with an international board of Academic Editors to thoroughly review each submission.

Editors-in-Chief

Jenna Davis

Pierre Horwitz

Executive-Editor

Debora Walker

Submit Your Manuscript

For more information about submitting to PLOS Water , read our guidelines for preparing a submission .

Publication Fees

PLOS employs several business models to support equitable Open Access. A full list of our publication fees, funding initiatives and fee assistance information is available here .

Open Access

PLOS applies the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license to works we publish. Under this license, authors agree to make articles legally available for reuse, without permission or fees, for virtually any purpose. Anyone may copy, distribute, or reuse these articles, as long as the author and original source are properly cited. Learn more .

Journal Impact and Article Metrics

PLOS does not consider Impact Factor to be a reliable or useful metric to assess the performance of individual articles. PLOS supports DORA – the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment – and does not promote our journal Impact Factors. We will provide the metric to individuals when specifically requested.

PLOS promotes the use of Article-Level Metrics (ALMs), which enable scientists and the general public to engage more dynamically with published research. ALMs reflect the changing impact of research over time, incorporate academic as well as social impacts of research, and assess the impact of research before the accrual of academic citations. Read more about ALMs .

Indexing and Archiving

To ensure research is widely accessible and discoverable, PLOS submits all of our titles to major indexing services for evaluation as soon as possible according to the schedule of the specific service. PLOS Water  began publishing its first articles in February 2022 and is currently indexed by the services listed below:

CABI CAB Abstracts, Crossref, Dimensions, DOAJ, Google Scholar.

We are continuing to work with services such as PubMed Central, Web of Science, MEDLINE, and Scopus and will update the list above as soon as the journal is indexed.

• See publishing details for all PLOS journal titles , including ISSN and indexing and archiving information.

PLOS is a nonprofit, Open Access publisher empowering researchers to accelerate progress in science and medicine by leading a transformation in research communication.

Visit the Contact page for details about whom to contact with different queries.

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Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology

Innovation for sustainable water

You can find details about how to access information remotely in this step-by-step guide . The guide will also help if for any reason you have difficulty accessing the content you want.

What would you like to know about this journal?

Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology  is a Transformative Journal, and Plan S compliant

Impact factor: 5.0*

Time to first decision (all decisions): 14.0 days**

Time to first decision (peer reviewed only): 52.0 days***

Editor-in-Chief: Graham Gagnon

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Read our latest themed issues Urban stormwater management Data-intensive water systems management and operation Polymers in liquid formulations Drinking water oxidation and disinfection processes

Journal scope

Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology  seeks to showcase high quality research about fundamental science, innovative technologies, and management practices that promote sustainable water.

The journal aims to provide a comprehensive and relevant forum that unites the diverse communities and disciplines conducting water research relevant to engineered systems and the built environment. This includes fundamental science geared toward understanding physical, chemical, and biological phenomena in these systems as well as applied research focused on the development and optimisation of engineered treatment, management, and supply strategies.

Papers must report a significant advance in the theory, fundamental understanding, practice or application of water research, management, engineering or technology, within the following areas:

• Treatment and fate of chemical and microbial contaminants, including emerging contaminants
• Water distribution and wastewater collection
• Green infrastructure
• Stormwater management and treatment
• Potable reuse
• Residue management
• Sustainability analysis and design, including life cycle assessment studies
• Municipal and industrial wastewater treatment and resource recovery
• Drinking water treatment
• Water policy and regulation
• Applications of new water technologies* 
• Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH)
• Water-energy nexus
• Simulation and data science applications to engineered water systems
• Environmental remediation of soil, sediment, and groundwater
• Impacts of climate change on engineered water systems

The journal places special focus on issues associated with water sustainability, as well as research that may lead to more secure, resilient and reliable water supplies. And it welcomes inter- and multidisciplinary work contributing to any of the above developments that are likely to be of interest to the broad community that the Journal addresses.

Manuscripts should be written to be accessible to scientists and engineers in all disciplines associated with the Journal.

All manuscripts must highlight their novel features and explain the significance of the work relative to related studies in their field as well as the likely impact on relevant water communities in the industry, government or academia.

*Please see the below expandable section for specific guidance regarding this area of our scope.

Measurement advances and analysis: these papers are encouraged and must clearly focus on the relevance of the work to engineered water systems and clearly explain the implications of the analysis or observations for sustainable water management. Papers dealing only with analysis, analytical method development or that simply report measured concentrations of target analytes (for example, occurrence and effluent concentrations of novel pollutant classes) will not be considered for publication.

Modeling: papers that lack appropriate validation through either experimental data or available and reliable datasets will not be considered for publication.

New materials or technologies for water treatment: emphasis must be placed on one of the following:

• Developing a fundamental understanding of the underlying mechanisms integral to technology performance
• Demonstrating how the practical application of the technology advances the field and improves upon existing treatment options

Papers in this area are strongly discouraged from focusing solely on technology demonstrations in model systems with model pollutant targets. Rather, they are encouraged to consider performance in complex (that is, environmentally relevant) systems and performance metrics (for example, efficacy across multiple pollutant targets, longevity, regeneration during application, and sustainability assessment) most relevant to real world application. 

Technology papers: we will not consider papers that focus solely on any of the following:

• Heavily focused on material synthesis and characterisation (such as nanomaterial catalysts)
• Consider only the removal of highly idealised targets (such as dyes)
• Work exclusively in clean laboratory systems
• Do not demonstrate innovation that advances the treatment field, or develops a technology without a clear and viable pathway to full scale implementation

Sustainability assessments: papers that cover, for example, life cycle assessment or life cycle cost analysis, of water-related technologies and systems must emphasize the fundamental insight into the factors governing technology or system performance. Papers are strongly discouraged from solely reporting absolute or comparative assessments of technologies/systems without uncovering novel insight or identifying critical barriers to sustainability.

These guidelines will be used by our Associate editors and reviewers to assess the significance of each submitted manuscript.

See who's on the team

Meet Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology  Editor-in-Chief and board members.

Editor-in-chief

Graham Gagnon , Dalhousie University, Canada

Associate editors

Sebastià Puig Broch , Universitat de Girona, Spain

Wenhai Chu , Tongji University, China

Ning Dai , University at Buffalo, USA

Lauren Stadler , Rice University, USA

Liu Ye , The University of Queensland, Australia

Editorial board members

Takahiro Fujioka , Nagasaki University, Japan

Karin Jönsson , Lund University, Sweden

Branko Kerkez , University of Michigan, USA

Jeonghwan Kim , Inha University, South Korea

Linda Lawton , Robert Gordon University, UK

Luca Vezzaro , Technical University of Denmark, Denmark

Eveline Volcke , Ghent University, Belgium

Federico Aulenta , National Research Council, Italy

Nicholas Ashbolt , University of Alberta, Canada

Tom Bond , University of Surrey, UK

Joby Boxall , The University of Sheffield, UK

Kartik Chandran , Columbia University in the City of New York, USA

Amy Childress , University of Southern California, USA

David Cwiertny , University of Iowa  

Joel Ducoste , North Carolina State University, USA

Marc Edwards , Virginia Tech, USA

Jingyun Fang , Sun Yat-sen University, China

Maria Jose Farre , Catalan Institute for Water Research, Spain

Yujie Feng , Harbin Institute of Technology, China

Kathrin Fenner , Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Eawag, Switzerland 

Ramesh Goel , University of Utah, USA

Ola Gomaa , National Center for Radiation Research and Technology, Egypt

Chris Gordon , University of Ghana, Ghana

April Gu , Cornell University, USA

Jochen Hack , TU Darmstadt, Germany

Zhen "Jason" He , Washington University in St. Louis, USA

Xia Huang , Tsinghua University, China

Cynthia Joll , Curtin University, Australia

Tamar Kohn , École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, EPFL, Switzerland

Peng Liang , Tsinghua University, China

Irene Lo , Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong

Julie Minton , WateReuse Foundation, USA

Vincenzo Naddeo , University of Salerno, Italy

Indumathi M Nambi , Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India

Long Ngheim , University of Technology Sydney, Australia

Paige Novak , University of Minnesota, USA

Yong Sik Ok , Korea University, South Korea

Ligy Philip , Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India

Thalappil Pradeep , Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India

Zhiyong "Jason" Ren , Princeton University, USA

Peter Robertson , Queen's University Belfast, UK

Michael Templeton , Imperial College London, UK

Kai Udert , Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Switzerland

Subramanyan Vasudevan , CSIR-Central Electrochemical Research Institute, India

Xin Wang , Nankai University, China

David Weissbrodt , TU Delft, The Netherlands

Krista Wigginton , University of Michigan, USA

Di Wu , Ghent University, South Korea

Defeng Xing , Harbin Institute of Technology, China

Jeyong Yoon , Seoul National University, South Korea

Neil Scriven , Executive Editor

Grace Thoburn , Deputy Editor

Nour Tanbouza , Development Editor

Claire Darby , Editorial Production Manager, ORCID 0000-0003-3059-6020

Emma Carlisle,  Publishing Editor

Hannah Hamilton , Publishing Editor

Ephraim Otumudia , Publishing Editor

Irene Sanchez Molina Santos , Publishing Editor

Michael Spencelayh , Publishing Editor

Callum Woof , Publishing Editor

Lauren Yarrow-Wright , Publishing Editor

Kate Bandoo , Editorial Assistant

Linda Warncke , Publishing Assistant

Sam Keltie , Publisher, Journals, ORCID 0000-0002-9369-8414

Article types

Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology publishes:

Communications

Full papers, perspectives, critical reviews, frontier reviews, tutorial reviews, comments and replies.

Reviews & Perspectives are normally invited, however suggestions for timely Reviews are very welcome. Interested authors should contact the Editorial Office at [email protected] with an abstract or brief synopsis of their intended Review.

These must report preliminary research findings that are novel and original, of immediate interest and are likely to have a high impact on the Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology community. Authors must provide a short paragraph explaining why their work justifies rapid publication as a communication.

Original research papers on any of the subjects outlined in the scope section and related areas are encouraged and welcomed. All papers should give due attention to overcoming limitations and to underlying principles. All contributions will be judged on the following four criteria. 1. Novelty and insight 2. Quality of scientific work and content 3. Clarity of objectives and aims of the work 4. Appropriateness of length to content of new science

These may be articles providing a personal view of part of one discipline associated with Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology or a philosophical look at a topic of relevance. Alternatively, Perspectives may be historical articles covering a particular subject area or the development of particular legislation, technologies, methodologies or other subjects within the scope of the journal.

Critical reviews must be a critical evaluation of the existing state of knowledge on a particular facet of water research or water technologies as they affect environmental science. They should be timely and provide insights based on existing literature. They should be of general interest to the journal's wide readership.

All Critical reviews undergo a rigorous and full peer review procedure, in the same way as regular research papers. Authors are encouraged to identify areas in the field where further developments are imminent or of urgent need, and any areas that may be of significance to the community in general. Critical reviews should not contain any unpublished original research.

These are shorter, more focused versions of Critical reviews on a well-defined, specific topic area covering approximately the last two-three years. Articles should cover only the most interesting/significant developments in that specific subject area.

The article should be highly critical and selective in referencing published work. One or two paragraphs of speculation about possible future developments may also be appropriate in the conclusion section.

Frontier reviews may also cover techniques/technologies that are too new for a Critical review or may address a subset of technologies available for a given area of research within the journal scope.

Frontier reviews should not contain unpublished original research.

Tutorial reviews should provide an introduction and overview of an important topic of relevance to the journal readership. The topic should be of relevance to both researchers who are new to the field as well as experts and provide a good introduction to the development of a subject, its current state and indications of future directions the field is expected to take. Tutorial reviews should not contain unpublished original research.

Comments and Replies are a medium for the discussion and exchange of scientific opinions between authors and readers concerning material published in Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology.

For publication, a Comment should present an alternative analysis of and/or new insight into the previously published material. Any Reply should further the discussion presented in the original article and the Comment. Comments and Replies that contain any form of personal attack are not suitable for publication. 

Comments that are acceptable for publication will be forwarded to the authors of the work being discussed, and these authors will be given the opportunity to submit a Reply. The Comment and Reply will both be subject to rigorous peer review in consultation with the journal’s Editorial Board where appropriate. The Comment and Reply will be published together.

Journal specific guidelines

See a summary of ESWRT’s journal-specific guidelines . More details are also provided below.

Use of RSC template

There are no submission specifics regarding formatting; use of Royal Society of Chemistry template is not required. Bibliographies should be formatted according to the following Endnote and Zotero style files to include the cited article’s title.

Authors are encouraged to include line numbering in submitted manuscripts. Although there is no page limit for Full papers, appropriateness of length to content of new science will be taken into consideration by reviewers.

Water Impact Statement

All submitted manuscripts must include a 'Water Impact Statement' (60 words maximum; approximately three sentences) that clearly states in plain language the broad-scale implications and real-world relevance of the work. True potential for immediate real-world impact may be subject to further study, but the pathways towards achieving that impact in future should at least be envisioned and explained.

Read Professor Michael Templeton’s Editorial Perspective “ Achieving real-world impact ” for further discussion on expectations for the journal.

Authors should use this statement to show that they have given serious consideration as to how their work addresses current challenges related to water sustainability in a realistic sense. This statement will be carefully considered by the editors and the reviewers and will help ascertain the relevance of the article for a broad audience. Absence of potential for real-world impact is reason for rejection. If the manuscript is accepted this statement will be included in the published article. Please note that manuscripts without this statement will not be peer-reviewed.

Double-anonymised peer review option

Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology is now offering authors the option of double-anonymised peer review. Both single- and double-anonymised peer review are now available to authors.

• Single-anonymised peer review - where reviewers are anonymous but author names and affiliations are known to reviewers. (This is the traditional peer review model used on Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology)
• Double-anonymised peer review - where authors and reviewers' identities are concealed from each other.

Guidelines for authors and reviewers can be found  here

Organisation of material

An article should have a short, straightforward title directed at the general reader. Lengthy systematic names and complicated and numerous chemical formulae should therefore be avoided where possible. The use of non-standard abbreviations and symbols in a title is not encouraged. Please bear in mind that readers increasingly use search engines to find literature; recognisable, key words should be included in the title where possible, to maximise the impact and discoverability of your work. Brevity in a title, though desirable, should be balanced against its accuracy and usefulness.

The use of series titles and part numbers in titles of papers is discouraged. Instead these can be included as a footnote to the first page together with a reference (reference 1) to the preceding part. When the preceding part has been submitted to a Royal Society of Chemistry journal but is not yet published, the paper reference number should be given.

Author names

Full names for all the authors of an article should be given. To give due acknowledgement to all workers contributing to the work, those who have contributed significantly to the research should be listed as co-authors. Authors who contributed equally can be noted with a Footnote and referenced with a symbol.

On submission of the manuscript, the corresponding author attests to the fact that those named as co-authors have agreed to its submission for publication and accepts the responsibility for having properly included all (and only) co- authors. If there are more than 10 co-authors on the manuscript, the corresponding author should provide a statement to specify the contribution of each co-author. The corresponding author signs a copyright licence on behalf of all the authors.

Table of contents entry

This entry should include a colour image (no larger than 8 cm wide x 4 cm high), and 20-30 words of text that highlight the novel aspects of your work. Graphics should be as clear as possible; simple schematic diagrams or reaction schemes are preferred to ORTEP- style crystal structure depictions and complicated graphs, for example. The graphic used in the table of contents entry need not necessarily appear in the article itself. Authors should bear in mind the final size of any lettering on the graphic. For examples, please see the online version of the journal.

Every paper must be accompanied by a summary (50-250 words) setting out briefly and clearly the main objects and results of the work; it should give the reader a clear idea of what has been achieved. The summary should be essentially independent of the main text; however, names, partial names or linear formulae of compounds may be accompanied by the numbers referring to the corresponding displayed formulae in the body of the text.

Please bear in mind that readers increasingly use search engines to find literature; recognisable, searchable terms and key words should be included in the abstract to enable readers to more effectively find your paper. The abstract should aim to address the following questions.

• What is the problem or research question being addressed?
• What experimental approach was used to address the problem or question?
• What key data and results were obtained?
• What conclusions can be drawn from the experimental results?
• What are the broader implications for the study with respect to water sustainability?

Water Impact Statement 

Authors must provide a 'Water Impact Statement' (60 words maximum) that clearly highlights the broad-scale implications and real-world relevance of the work. This statement should be different from the abstract and must set the work in broader context with regards to water sustainability. True potential for immediate real-world impact may be subject to further study, but the pathways towards achieving that impact in future should at least be envisioned and explained in this statement.

When composing your Water Impact Statement, please consider the following points:

1.What is the problem? 2.Why is it important? 3.How does this translate to real-world applications/scenarios? 4.How can this be generalised?  5.Why is this work significant for ensuring sustainable water resources?  

This statement will be seen by the reviewers and will help ascertain the relevance of the article for a broad but technical audience. Authors should use it to show that they have given serious consideration to the impact of their presented study. Absence of potential for real-world impact is reason for rejection. If the paper is accepted this statement will also be published. Please note that papers cannot be peer-reviewed without this statement.

Introduction

This should give clearly and briefly, with relevant references, both the nature of the problem under investigation and its background.

Descriptions of methods and/or experiments should be given in detail sufficient to enable experienced experimental workers to repeat them. Standard techniques and methods used throughout the work should be stated at the beginning of the section. Apparatus should be described only if it is non-standard; commercially available instruments are referred to by their stock numbers (for example, Perkin-Elmer 457 or Varian HA-100 spectrometers). The accuracy of primary measurements should be stated. In general there is no need to report unsuccessful experiments. Authors are encouraged to make use of electronic supplementary information (ESI) for lengthy synthetic sections. Any unusual hazards inherent in the use of chemicals, procedures or equipment in the investigation should be clearly identified. In cases where a study involves the use of live animals or human subjects, the author should include a statement that all experiments were performed in compliance with the relevant laws and institutional guidelines, and also state the institutional committee(s) that have approved the experiments. They should also include a statement that informed consent was obtained for any experimentation with human subjects. Referees may be asked to comment specifically on any cases in which concerns arise.

Results and discussion

It is usual for the results to be presented first, followed by a discussion of their significance. Only strictly relevant results should be presented and figures, tables, and equations should be used for purposes of clarity and brevity. The use of flow diagrams and reaction schemes is encouraged. Data must not be reproduced in more than one form - for example, in both figures and tables, without good reason.

This is for interpretation and to highlight the novelty and significance of the work. Authors are encouraged to discuss the real world relevance of the work reported and how it promotes water sustainability. The conclusions should not summarise information already present in the text or abstract.

Acknowledgements

Contributors other than co-authors may be acknowledged in a separate paragraph at the end of the paper; acknowledgements should be as brief as possible. All sources of funding should be declared.

Bibliographic references and notes

These should be listed at the end of the manuscript in numerical order. We encourage the citation of primary research over review articles, where appropriate, in order to give credit to those who first reported a finding. Find out more about our commitments to the principles of  San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA).

Bibliographic details should be cited in the order: year, volume , page, and must include the article title. For example: Lukas Mustajärvi, Ann-Kristin Eriksson-Wiklund, Elena Gorokhova, Annika Jahnke and Anna Sobek, Transferring mixtures of chemicals from sediment to a bioassay using silicone-based passive sampling and dosing, Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts , 2017, 19 , 1404-1413. See  Endnote style files . For Zotero, please use the Royal Society of Chemistry (with titles) template.

Bibliographic reference to the source of statements in the text is made by use of superior numerals at the appropriate place (for example, Wittig3). The reference numbers should be cited in the correct sequence through the text (including those in tables and figure captions, numbered according to where the table or figure is designated to appear).  Please do not use Harvard style for references.

The references themselves are given at the end of the final printed text along with any notes. The names and initials of all authors are always given in the reference; they must not be replaced by the phrase et al . This does not prevent some, or all, of the names being mentioned at their first citation in the cursive text; initials are not necessary in the text. Notes or footnotes may be used to present material that, if included in the body of the text, would disrupt the flow of the argument but which is, nevertheless, of importance in qualifying or amplifying the textual material. Footnotes are referred to with the following symbols: †, ‡, §, ¶, ║etc.

Alternatively the information may be included as Notes (end-notes) to appear in the Notes/references section of the manuscript. Notes should be numbered using the same numbering system as the bibliographic references.

Journals The style of journal abbreviations to be used in RSC publications is that defined in Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index (CASSI) (http://www.cas.org/expertise/cascontent/caplus/corejournals.html).

Bibliographic details should be cited in the order: year, volume , page. Where page numbers are not yet known, articles should be cited by DOI (Digital Object Identifier) - for example, T. J. Hebden, R. R. Schrock, M. K. Takase and P. Müller, Chem. Commun ., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2CC17634C.

Books J. Barker, in Catalyst Deactivation , ed. B. Delmon and C. Froment, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2nd edn., 1987, vol. 1, ch. 4, pp. 253-255.

Patents Br. Pat ., 357 450, 1986. US Pat ., 1 171 230, 1990.

Reports and bulletins, etc R. A. Allen, D. B. Smith and J. E. Hiscott, Radioisotope Data , UKAEA Research Group Report AERE-R 2938, H.M.S.O., London, 1961.

Material presented at meetings H. C. Freeman, Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Coordination Chemistry, Toulouse, 1980.

Theses A. D. Mount, Ph.D. Thesis, University of London, 1977.

Reference to unpublished material For material presented at a meeting, congress or before a Society, etc., but not published, the following form is used:  A. R. Jones, presented in part at the 28th Congress of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, Vancouver, August, 1981.

For material accepted for publication, but not yet published, the following forms are used.

• A. R. Jones, Dalton Trans. , 2003, DOI: 10.1039/manuscript number, for RSC journals 
• A. R. Jones, Angew. Chem ., in press, for non-RSC journals

If DOI numbers are known these should be cited in the form recommended by the publisher.

For material submitted for publication but not yet accepted the following form is used.

• A. R. Jones, Angew. Chem ., submitted.

For personal communications the following is used.

• G. B. Ball, personal communication.

If material is to be published but has yet to be submitted the following form is used.

• G. B. Ball, unpublished work.

Reference to unpublished work should not be made without the permission of those by whom the work was performed.

Software F James,  AIM2000, version 1.0, University of Applied Sciences, Bielefeld,  Germany, 2000. T Bellander, M Lewne and B Brunekreef, GAUSSIAN 3 (Revision B.05), Gaussian Inc., Pittsburgh, PA, 2003.

Online resources (including databases) Please note the most important information to include is the URL and the data accessed.

• The Merck Index Online, http://www.rsc.org/Merck-lndex/monograph/mono1500000841, (accessed October 2013).
• ChemSpider, http://www.chemspider.com/Chemicai-Structure.1906.html, (accessed June 2011).

arXiv references V. Krstic and M. Glerup, 2006, arXiv:cond-mat/0601513.

Figures & schemes

Preparation of graphics.

Artwork should be submitted at its final size so that reduction is not required. The appearance of graphics is the responsibility of the author.

• Graphics should fit within either single column (8.3 cm) or double column (17.1 cm) width, and must be no longer than 23.3 cm.
• Graphical abstracts should be no larger than 8 x 4 cm.
• Schemes and structures should be drawn to make best use of single and double column widths.

Colour figures

Colour figure reproduction is provided free of charge both online and in print.

Journal covers

Authors who wish to have their artwork featured on a journal cover should contact the editorial office of the journal to which the article is being submitted. A contribution to the additional production costs will be requested.

Use of such artwork is at the editor's discretion; the editor's decision is final. Examples of previous journal covers can be viewed via the journal homepage.

Electronic supplementary information

The journal's electronic supplementary information (ESI) service is a free facility that enables authors to enhance and increase the impact of their articles. Authors are encouraged to make the most of the benefits of publishing supplementary information in electronic form. Such data can take full advantage of the electronic medium, allowing use of 3D molecular models and movies. Authors can also improve the readability of their articles by placing appropriate material, such as repetitive experimental details and bulky data, as ESI. All information published as ESI is also fully archived. When preparing their ESI data files, authors should keep in mind the following points.

• Supplementary data is peer-reviewed, and should therefore be included with the original submission.
• ESI files are published 'as is'; editorial staff will not usually edit the data for style or content.
• Data is useful only if readers can access it; use common file formats.
• Large files may prove difficult for users to download and access.

Text and graphics

The preferred format for ESI comprising text and graphics is Microsoft Word. Publishing staff will convert Word files to PDF before publication, as this format can be accessed easily and reliably on most computing platforms using the freely available Adobe Acrobat Reader. If other formats are submitted they will also usually be converted to PDF files prior to publication.

Multimedia files

We welcome submission of multimedia files (including videos and animations) alongside articles for publication. Videos are an excellent medium to present elements of your work that can be difficult to communicate only in words. Please note that any videos of general interest are shared with the wider community via the RSC Journals YouTube channel. Please notify the editorial team if you prefer for your video(s) not to be uploaded to YouTube. If you submit a multimedia file alongside your paper, please refer to it within your paper to draw it to the reader’s attention. Also please see the section on submitting multimedia files

Format Acceptable formats for video or animation clips are listed below.

Please minimise file sizes where you can, by considering the following points.

• The recommended maximum frame size is 640 x 480 pixels.
• Our recommended maximum file size is 5 Mb.
• Many packages output 30 frames per second (fps) as standard, but it's possible to specify a lower frame rate; this may not noticeably affect the quality of your video but will reduce the file size.
• Use a 256 colour palette, if that is suitable for the presentation of the material.

Please consider the use of lower specifications for all these points if the material can still be represented clearly.

If your video is very short (that is, several seconds long) then it is recommended that you loop it and repeat a few times to provide a more detailed view.

Submitting multimedia files Upload your video online, together with your manuscript under the category 'electronic supplementary material' and please supply the following.

• A clear file name for your video.
• A short descriptive title for the video, which can be used when uploading the video onto a streaming channel.
• A video legend of approximately 30 words long; this caption must be provided to aid discoverability.
• Five to 10 keywords that can be used to tag the video; the more accurate the tags are the better discoverability videos will have.

Copies of any relevant 'in press' references

Manuscripts should be submitted with copies of any ‘in press’ articles referenced.

Open access publishing options

Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology  is a hybrid (transformative) journal and gives authors the choice of publishing their research either via the traditional subscription-based model or instead by choosing our gold open access option.  Find out more about our Transformative Journals. which are Plan S compliant .

Gold open access

For authors who want to publish their article gold open access , Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology  charges an article processing charge (APC) of £2,750 (+ any applicable tax). Our APC is all-inclusive and makes your article freely available online immediately, permanently, and includes your choice of Creative Commons licence (CC BY or CC BY-NC) at no extra cost. It is not a submission charge, so you only pay if your article is accepted for publication.

Learn more about publishing open access .

Read & Publish

If your institution has a Read & Publish agreement in place with the Royal Society of Chemistry, APCs for gold open access publishing in Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology  may already be covered.

Use our journal finder to check if your institution has an open access agreement with us.

Please use your official institutional email address to submit your manuscript and check you are assigned as the corresponding author; this helps us to identify if you are eligible for Read & Publish or other APC discounts.

Traditional subscription model

Authors can also publish in Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology via the traditional subscription model without needing to pay an APC. Articles published via this route are available to institutions and individuals who subscribe to the journal. Our standard licence allows you to make the accepted manuscript of your article freely available after a 12-month embargo period. This is known as the green route to open access.

Learn more about green open access .

Subscription information

  Online only 2024:  ISSN: 2053-1419, £2,031 / $3,352

*2022 Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate Analytics, 2023)

**The median time from submission to first decision including manuscripts rejected without peer review from the previous calendar year

***The median time from submission to first decision for peer-reviewed manuscripts from the previous calendar year

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About Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology

Innovation for Sustainable Water Editor-in-chief: Graham Gagnon Impact factor: 5.0 Time to first decision (peer reviewed only): 52 days

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EDITORIAL article

Editorial: scale issues in human-water systems.

• 1 Water Resources Management Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands
• 2 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, United States
• 3 Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, United States
• 4 Centre of Natural Hazards and Disaster Science (CNDS), Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
• 5 Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
• 6 Department of Hydraulic Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
• 7 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
• 8 Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Dübendorf, Switzerland

Editorial on the Research Topic Scale issues in human-water systems

All around the world humans are influenced by shifting waterscapes due to changing hydro-climatological regimes. At the same time, humans increasingly contribute substantial changes to the water cycle, which in turn influence human activities and decision making in respect of water. Both natural-physical (e.g., hydrological) and human-social (e.g., political) processes exhibit considerable spatial and temporal variability, which is organized around multiple space and time scales resulting from their long-term coevolution ( Blöschl and Sivapalan, 1995 ; Gunderson et al., 1995 ; Sivapalan and Blöschl, 2015 ). Future human wellbeing worldwide, supported by deliberate action, requires us to substantially improve our understanding of the interplay between people and water across multiple space and time scales ( Yu et al., 2022 ). Such cross-sectoral understanding is crucial for developing knowledge and tools to adequately inform and support actors involved in disaster-risk reduction and multi-level water governance. Existing mismatches between governance and water systems call for interdisciplinary efforts informing scale-sensitive governance ( Wiegant et al., 2022 ).

This Research Topic brings together contributions that review and address issues that arise when studying the relationships between water and people in the context of spatial and temporal scales. Figure 1 schematically represents the scope of this Research Topic, with the four contributions positioned among the concepts of People, Water, Space, and Time.

Figure 1 . Scale issues in human-water systems involve challenges in studying processes involving people and water in space and time. The four contributions to this Research Topic provide insights into dealing with these challenges along with suggestions for improvement, each from a unique sociohydrological perspective.

Fischer et al. provides a systematic review of spatial and temporal scale issues in sociohydrology. Based on a synthesis of 152 reported sociohydrological case-studies, they highlight that complexities and uncertainties complicate efforts to simulate feedbacks and interactions in coupled human-water systems. Their synthesis underlines the multi-scale nature of sociohydrological systems across space and time. This applies to hydrological and social processes studied as well as to the scales and levels for which relevant data is (un)available. Even though the setup of their systematic review is very broad, Fischer et al. found that a majority of the studies they reviewed had been published in hydrological journals and contain established hydrological approaches rather than social-science approaches. The most commonly reported spatial extents link to administrative boundaries (e.g., national and state) and natural or physical boundaries (e.g., watersheds). For reported temporal extents decadal and annual assessments predominate, but also event-based and millennial timescales were identified. Fischer et al. call for more interdisciplinary unity to overcome current limitations of sociohydrology research, with emphasis on reporting spatial and temporal scales and levels used. They note that the absence of a common understanding of the endogenization of humans in human-water systems has hampered knowledge accumulation in the field of sociohydrology.

In a macro-historical geographic review on institutional water-management levels Wescoat provides a very rich overview of governance processes that have importantly contributed to shape today's Colorado River basin's region. This review details the progression from early small-scale institutions into more recent multi-level institutions. Wescoat portrays the Colorado River in North America as an example of a complex water-stressed basin with multiple institutional levels of water management, each being characterized by rules, organizations, and spatial jurisdictions. The work is based on a systematic bibliographic review focusing on the relationship between institutional levels and geographic (or spatial) scales. Included reports on the Colorado River basin region reflect community-level perspectives from prehistoric Indian water cultures, early Hispanic water communities, 19th century water communities, and 20th century water organizations. Wescoat goes into depth on the effects of conflict (among water communities) and competition (among states) on later developments that led to interstate, federal, tribal, and eventually leading international level institutions (involving the countries of U.S. and Mexico).

Dhaubanjar et al. discusses the potential of run-of-river hydropower generation in the Upper Indus basin considering climate change effects. They argue that such insights are urgently needed, particularly because current policy ambitions do not account for climate change. The (future) hydropower potential in the upper Indus basin was estimated using model simulations and climate change projections. Hydropower potential is further discussed using theoretical, technical, financial and sustainability perspectives, considering constraints on locating and dimensioning of run-of-river hydropower infrastructure. Scenario explorations indicate that energy availability could decline locally as population numbers increase faster than per-capita sustainable hydropower potential. The future prospects of a spatial mismatch between hydropower availability and energy demand adds to the complexity of achieving sustainable and equitable hydropower development in the Indus basin. Dhaubanjar et al. underline that addressing such complexity requires conducting a comprehensive sociohydrological approach.

Priya conducted an analysis of print-media reports of monsoon floods in Bihar, India. This review focused on articles from a popular Hindi newspaper reflecting narratives on flooding, including its natural drivers and human impacts. In doing this, different water meanings and water-management discourses are discussed. From 376 water-reporting news items identified 139 articles fall under the theme of “monsoon floods.” For these articles Priya conducted a discourse analysis. Most news stories reported on short-term impacts of floods and on flood management. Reporting was found to be spatially disconnected and overall not fact-based with news items on flood mitigation often including statements in favor of structural interventions such as embankments. Two narratives identified were found to be particularly problematic, including framings of ‘floods as unwelcome disasters exacerbated by rainfall and discharge from upstream Nepal' ignoring anthropogenic and local causes of floods and its impact, and the “interlinking of rivers and constructed embankments as effective solutions.” Priya identified important imitations and consequences of the unnuanced and poorly diversified reporting are discussed.

The contributions to this Research Topic illustrate the diversity of approaches and richness in relevant sociohydrological topics. They also show the challenges and efforts required to make progress toward adequately informing and supporting actors involved in water-related disaster-risk reduction and multi-level water governance.

Author contributions

PV: Conceptualization, Visualization, Writing—original draft. MS: Writing—review & editing. GD: Writing—review & editing. FT: Writing—review & editing. SN: Writing—review & editing. SM: Writing—review & editing.

The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the contributors of the issue for their patience in enthusiasm to work on revised drafts. We are grateful to the reviewers.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

The author(s) declared that they were an editorial board member of Frontiers, at the time of submission. This had no impact on the peer review process and the final decision.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords: scale, people, water, space, time

Citation: Van Oel P, Sivapalan M, Di Baldassarre G, Tian F, Nakamura S and Marks S (2024) Editorial: Scale issues in human-water systems. Front. Water 6:1413800. doi: 10.3389/frwa.2024.1413800

Received: 07 April 2024; Accepted: 08 April 2024; Published: 17 April 2024.

Edited and reviewed by: Saket Pande , Delft University of Technology, Netherlands

Copyright © 2024 Van Oel, Sivapalan, Di Baldassarre, Tian, Nakamura and Marks. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Pieter Van Oel, pieter.vanoel@wur.nl

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Who needs Paxlovid now? New guidelines suggest only highest-risk groups should get COVID drug

Recommendations for provincial drug plans feature narrower definition of who should qualify.

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This story is part of CBC Health's Second Opinion, a weekly analysis of health and medical science news emailed to subscribers on Saturday mornings. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do that by  clicking here .

If you consider yourself at a higher risk of serious illness from COVID-19 — because of your age, or maybe due to preexisting health issues — you might assume you'll be able to get treatment with Paxlovid when the time comes.

And you might assume the steep cost of the antiviral drug would be automatically covered by your provincial health plan.

But all that might change. There are new Canadian recommendations for who should actually get Paxlovid at this point, guided by a growing body of research suggesting the drug's life-saving benefits now apply to a narrower definition of high-risk individuals.

The expert committee for the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH), the body providing advice for the country's publicly funded health care systems, released draft recommendations earlier this year which offer fresh guidance for how drug plans should cover the treatment.

It stipulates Paxlovid should only be reimbursed for patients in two scenarios: If someone is severely immunosuppressed (such as organ transplant recipients) or moderately immunosuppressed (such as someone undergoing cancer treatment, individuals with advanced HIV infections, or anyone with moderate immunodeficiencies).

Simply being older or unvaccinated — both factors long thought to hike someone's risk of serious illness or death from COVID — didn't make the cut.

The recommendations were provided to drug plans on April 11 as part of a negotiation process during which provinces decide whether or not to follow suit.

Multiple medical experts said if provincial decision makers do choose to align with the committee's suggestions, Canadians would only be eligible to get Paxlovid covered if they meet the narrow criteria for severe or moderate immunosuppression. 

Those potential changes may come as a surprise to many Canadians who've long been eligible under broader provincial guidelines — including some that currently allow people as young as 60 to access the drug based on their age and other related risk factors.

But multiple experts told CBC News that who is truly high-risk now, four years into the pandemic, has changed. And narrowed eligibility is based on the latest research into how well the drug works for various groups, said University of British Columbia researcher Colin Dormuth, whose own findings helped inform the CADTH recommendations.

"The risk of something bad happening to you because of COVID-19 is now very low," Dormuth said.

COVID drug Paxlovid may not be reaching enough patients

Who's most at risk has 'changed over time'.

In the early years after SARS-CoV-2 first struck, the arrival of Pfizer's oral antiviral drug — a combination of the medications nirmatrelvir and ritonavir — was hailed as a game-changer. 

But its rollout was marred by controversy. There were reports of symptom "rebound" after the five-day treatment, which was later found to happen whether or not people took the drug . Some physicians also questioned who actually benefited from Paxlovid as the pandemic evolved. And, perhaps not surprisingly given all that debate, there was often low uptake, which left hundreds of thousands of treatments sitting unused across Canada.

Most recently, the federal government stopped its purchases of Paxlovid as of March 31, leaving future procurement up to the provinces. Most of Canada's remaining inventory also expired at the end of March, with a smaller portion expiring on May 31, said a spokesperson for the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Now multiple studies, including Dormuth's, are shedding light on where Pfizer's drug actually fits into the COVID treatment picture at this point in the pandemic.

• Second Opinion Once touted as a COVID-19 'game changer,' Paxlovid is now a question mark for clinicians
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Published in a letter to members of the medical community from the University of British Columbia (UBC) Therapeutics Initiative , Dormuth's observational study looked at more than 6,000 B.C. residents. It showed Paxlovid was associated with reduced chance of severe illness in people at the highest risk, but found no evidence that it made a difference for anyone else. 

"Even just within older people over 70, we didn't find an improvement in terms of reducing one's chance of being hospitalized or dying," Dormuth told CBC News.

"The bottom line is that for most people with COVID-19, Paxlovid will not make you feel better any faster, and will not lower your chance of [serious illness]."

The results, which have not been peer-reviewed, align with Pfizer's own findings. The drugmaker's latest trial data, published in the New England Journal of Medicine earlier this month, looked at standard-risk groups — people who had risk factors and were vaccinated, along with unvaccinated individuals. 

That trial found there weren't any major differences in COVID-related hospitalizations and deaths, nor was there any difference in how long people had symptoms, whether or not people had Paxlovid.

The Pfizer research also included participants of various ages. Age alone "is at best an arbitrary marker for risks … and needs to be contextualized among other risk factors such as vaccination status and comorbidities," wrote the Therapeutics Initiative team at UBC in their latest letter.

The draft CADTH guidelines for the province's drug plans also stressed that the risk factors involved in developing severe COVID once included a wide range of factors including older age, but "have changed over time" as population immunity increased. 

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Many experts now agree that widespread vaccination and prior infections helped the vast majority of people develop immunity to what was once a brand-new threat, reducing rates of serious illness. Vaccines are also thought to dramatically ward off the possibility of developing long COVID .

And in Canada, the number of patients dying of COVID has plummeted , even among the oldest adults — though they still face highest rates of hospitalizations and ICU stays, which can erode someone's quality of life.

Drug still 'lifesaving' for high-risk individuals

It all paints a reassuring picture of this virus' trajectory. 

Yet the grim reality is that deaths from COVID remain a routine occurrence, with more than 30 Canadians losing their lives in the last week of March . 

The question now is just how many of those deaths could be prevented — and whether the people who could benefit most from Paxlovid are the ones actually getting the drug.

U.S. infectious diseases physician Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, also stressed Paxlovid was never designed to lessen people's symptoms in the general population, but rather to prevent severe disease. 

• Elderly Canadians remain at higher risk of serious COVID from first infections, study suggests

And while it still works for that purpose, he warned misconceptions around the drug mean it ends up being under-prescribed in high-risk populations.

"'Keeping you alive' isn't resonating with people as much as 'decreasing your sore throat faster' or something like that," said Adalja.

"If people misunderstand what it does and it doesn't deliver on something that it was never designed to do, and people form a negative evaluation of the drug, that creates apprehension around prescribing it, and patients aren't asking their doctors for it."

Thousands of doses of COVID-19 antiviral treatment remain unused

Adelja argued eligibility should remain more broad, allowing anyone with known risk factors — such as being 65 and up, pregnant, obese, or having other health issues or immunodeficiencies — to access the drug.

"Right now… Paxlovid is the best we have and it's really lifesaving for high-risk individuals," he said.

Anyone who considers themselves high risk should speak to their primary care provider about the drug if they do catch COVID, Dormuth said, adding he's concerned that people who truly need the drug might not be the ones accessing it in Canada. 

In B.C. alone, roughly 300 people each week take Paxlovid, according to data cited by UBC's Therapeutics Initiative. 

But with much less PCR testing and collection being done at this point in the pandemic, and no one collecting at-home rapid testing results, Dormuth said we've lost "critical data" to help understand who's getting sick and why.

'Resources aren't infinite' as drug costs $1,200+

The reality, he added, is "resources aren't infinite." 

Pfizer's drug is pricey, costing $1,288.88 per five-day course, CADTH's documents show, prompting some experts to question if widespread purchasing and prescribing would actually save enough lives to justify those costs. (Should provinces no longer cover Paxlovid, it's also possible ineligible people may also have the option of paying out-of-pocket, or through private insurers, but again, it all depends on what each province decides.)

"As soon as we spend a dollar on one thing, we can't spend it on something else," Dormuth added.

With SARS-CoV-2 still circulating, multiple experts agreed that more front line treatments could come down the pike, making further studies into drug efficacy essential. 

• Second Opinion Researchers are still untangling the risks of catching COVID over and over

"We definitely continue to need more research on what treatments actually work for COVID in the acute phase, and we still don't have that evidence," said Unity Health public health specialist Dr. Andrew Pinto, the director of the University of Toronto's Upstream Lab .

Pinto is part of a Canadian team doing ongoing research into Paxlovid and other existing and future treatments through the cross-country CanTreatCOVID trials, which have so far enrolled roughly 450 participants.  The goal, he said, is eventually pooling results with the larger PANORAMIC trials happening in the U.K.

"COVID is still with us, and will likely continue to be with us," he said. "It's still quite a deadly disease compared to other respiratory infections."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Senior Health & Medical Reporter

Lauren Pelley covers health and medical science for CBC News, including the global spread of infectious diseases, Canadian health policy, pandemic preparedness, and the crucial intersection between human health and climate change. Two-time RNAO Media Award winner for in-depth health reporting in 2020 and 2022. Contact her at: [email protected]

• @LaurenPelley

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What Makes Tiny Tardigrades Nearly Radiation Proof

New research finds that the microscopic “water bears" are remarkably good at repairing their DNA after a huge blast of radiation.

By Carl Zimmer

To introduce her children to the hidden marvels of the animal kingdom a few years ago, Anne De Cian stepped into her garden in Paris. Dr. De Cian, a molecular biologist, gathered bits of moss, then came back inside to soak them in water and place them under a microscope. Her children gazed into the eyepiece at strange, eight-legged creatures clambering over the moss.

“They were impressed,” Dr. De Cian said.

But she was not finished with the tiny beasts, known as tardigrades. She brought them to her laboratory at the French National Museum of Natural History, where she and her colleagues hit them with gamma rays. The blasts were hundreds of times greater than the radiation required to kill a human being. Yet the tardigrades survived, going on with their lives as if nothing had happened.

Scientists have long known that tardigrades are freakishly resistant to radiation, but only now are Dr. De Cian and other researchers uncovering the secrets of their survival. Tardigrades turn out to be masters of molecular repair, able to quickly reassemble piles of shattered DNA, according to a study published on Friday and another from earlier this year.

Scientists have been trying to breach the defenses of tardigrades for centuries. In 1776, Lazzaro Spallanzani, an Italian naturalist, described how the animals could dry out completely and then be resurrected with a splash of water. In the subsequent decades, scientists found that tardigrades could withstand crushing pressure, deep freezes and even a trip to outer space.

In 1963, a team of French researchers found that tardigrades could withstand massive blasts of X-rays. In more recent studies, researchers have found that some species of tardigrades can withstand a dose of radiation 1,400 times higher than what’s required to kill a person.

Radiation is deadly because it breaks apart DNA strands. A high-energy ray that hits a DNA molecule can cause direct damage; it can also wreak havoc by colliding with another molecule inside a cell. That altered molecule may then attack the DNA.

Scientists suspected that tardigrades could prevent or undo this damage. In 2016, researchers at the University of Tokyo discovered a protein called Dsup , which appeared to shield tardigrade genes from energy rays and errant molecules. The researchers tested their hypothesis by putting Dsup into human cells and pelting them with X-rays. The Dsup cells were less damaged than cells without the tardigrade protein.

That research prompted Dr. De Cian’s interest in tardigrades. She and her colleagues studied the animals she had gathered in her Paris garden, along with a species found in England and a third from Antarctica. As they reported in January, gamma rays shattered the DNA of the tardigrades, yet failed to kill them.

Courtney Clark-Hachtel, a biologist at the University of North Carolina Asheville, and her colleagues independently found that the tardigrades ended up with broken genes . Their study was published on Friday in the journal Current Biology.

These findings suggest that Dsup on its own does not prevent DNA damage, though it’s possible the proteins provide partial protection. It’s hard to know for sure because scientists are still figuring out how to run experiments with tardigrades. They cannot engineer the animals without the Dsup gene, for example, to see how they would handle radiation.

“We’d love to do this experiment,” Jean-Paul Concordet, Dr. De Cian’s collaborator at the museum, said. “But what we can do with tardigrades is still quite rudimentary.”

Both new studies revealed another trick of the tardigrades: They quickly fix their broken DNA.

After tardigrades are exposed to radiation, their cells use hundreds of genes to make a new batch of proteins. Many of these genes are familiar to biologists, because other species — ourselves included — use them to repair damaged DNA.

Our own cells are continually repairing genes . The strands of DNA in a typical human cell break about 40 times a day — and each time, our cells have to fix them.

The tardigrades make these standard repair proteins in astonishing large amounts. “I thought, ‘This is ridiculous’,” Dr. Clark-Hachtel recalled when she first measured their levels.

Dr. De Cian and her colleagues also discovered that radiation causes tardigrades to make a number of proteins not seen in other animals. For now, their functions remain mostly a mystery.

The scientists picked out a particularly abundant protein to study, called TRD1. When inserted in human cells, it seemed to help the cells withstand damage to their DNA. Dr. Concordet speculated that TRD1 may grab onto chromosomes and hold them in their correct shape, even as their strands start to fray.

Studying proteins like TRD1 won’t just reveal the powers of tardigrades, Dr. Concordet said, but could also lead to new ideas about how to treat medical disorders. DNA damage plays a part in many kinds of cancer, for example. “Any tricks they use we might benefit from,” Dr. Concordet said.

Dr. Concordet still finds it bizarre that tardigrades are so good at surviving radiation. After all, they don’t have to survive in nuclear power plants or uranium-lined caves.

“This is one of the big enigmas: Why are these organisms resistant to radiation in the first place?” he said.

Dr. Concordet said that this tardigrade superpower could just be an extraordinary coincidence. Dehydration can also break DNA, so tardigrades may use their shields and repair proteins to withstand drying out.

While a Paris garden may look to us like an easy place to live, Dr. Concordet said that it might pose a lot of challenges to a tardigrade. Even the disappearance of the dew each morning might be a catastrophe.

“We don’t know what life is like down there in the moss,” he said.

Carl Zimmer covers news about science for The Times and writes the Origins column . More about Carl Zimmer

The Mysteries and Wonders of Our DNA

Women are much more likely than men to have an array of so-called autoimmune diseases, like lupus and multiple sclerosis. A new study offers an explanation rooted in the X chromosome .

DNA fragments from thousands of years ago are providing insights  into multiple sclerosis, diabetes, schizophrenia and other illnesses. Is this the future of medicine ?

A study of DNA from half a million volunteers found hundreds of mutations that could boost a young person’s fertility  and that were linked to bodily damage later in life.

In the first effort of its kind, researchers now have linked DNA from 27 African Americans buried in the cemetery to nearly 42,000 living relatives .

Environmental DNA research has aided conservation, but scientists say its ability to glean information about humans poses dangers .

That person who looks just like you is not your twin. But if scientists compared your genomes, they might find a lot in common .