Looking back while moving forward

Welcome back to Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology! I'd like to start by wishing all in the ESWRT “family” of authors, reviewers, and readers a prosperous and productive 2016. May your data be reproducible, your writing plentiful (with a few manuscripts sent our way…) and your grants funded!

As in life, the occasion of the New Year provides a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the noteworthy achievements at ESWRT over the past year and give thanks to those that helped make everything possible. Indeed, after an amazing inaugural year, we have much to be thankful for here at ESWRT. By most measures and standards, our first year and volume were a great success. We're humbled by the positive response the journal has received from our community, and our entire team at the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) remains energized and hopeful for the future as we grow and increase our impact.

Looking back, a few themes for ESWRT stand out that, in my mind, define quite well where we've been and where we are going. The first is quality. We've had the privilege of publishing some tremendous research articles, communications, perspectives and reviews from leading and up-and-coming authors and scientists in the fields of water research, technology and sustainability. Each year, we plan on acknowledging the best of the best as our “Papers of the Year”, selected by our editorial team. This year, among a sea of innovative and high impact work, a few scholarly efforts rise to the surface. In no particular order, these include: (i) Hensley et al. (DOI: 10.1039/C4EW00102H), a fascinating look at the occurrence of triclosan, its chlorinated derivatives and hydroxylated polybrominated diphenyl ethers in wastewater effluent; (ii) Wigginton et al. (DOI: 10.1039/C5EW00125K), a critical review from our Emerging Investigators series on the sources and fates of viruses in the urban water cycle; and (iii) the work of Park et al. (DOI: 10.1039/C5EW00120J) on approaches to model the removal of organic micropollutants during ozonation for potable reuse systems, which was featured in our Potable Reuse of Water themed issue. A hearty congrats to these research teams for their fine contributions. I encourage you all to get to know these outstanding papers. And consider this an invitation to send ESWRT your best work in the upcoming year so that we might be able to give you a similar distinction in 2016.

Another theme is youth. Certainly, society has some daunting environmental challenges on the horizon. What encourages me is the incredible promise and brilliant minds of the many early career scientists in our field. Indeed, one of my favorite parts of working in this particular research field is discovering and getting to know this next generation of research leaders. To facilitate this, ESWRT is committed to growing our ongoing Emerging Investigator's series. Thus far, we have published three papers in this series from Krista Wigginton at Michigan (discussed above), Tom Bond (DOI: 10.1039/C5EW00222B) at Imperial College London on disinfection byproducts generated during production of tea and coffee (which I read with great interest due to my voluminous coffee intake compliments of my 3 and 6 year olds at home), and Patrick McNamara’s work on the fate of triclosan, triclocarban and nonylphenol during pyrolysis of biosolids (DOI: 10.1039/C5EW00229J). For 2016, we have outstanding contributions lined up from several other remarkable early career scientists, and I hope you'll come back often to check out the content showcased in this series.

Lastly, I hope you will come to associate ESWRT with top shelf themed content. This was exemplified last year through the hard work of guest editor Stuart Khan, whose collection on the Potable Reuse of Water (issue 5; rsc.li/potable) was filled, top to bottom, with some of the leading minds and cutting edge research on what is certain to become the future of water management in many parts of the world. A personal highlight for me was the “global” perspective in the potable reuse issue (DOI: 10.1039/C5EW00165J) on research opportunities and challenges, written by a team of authors from water reuse agencies around the globe.

And, of course, reflections on this first year derive thanks. I want to take this time to acknowledge the hard work of our amazing Associate Editors, Stuart Khan, Paige Novak, and Tamar Kohn. They gracefully handled a load of submissions that surpassed expectations (a positive sign!) and helped to instill a culture of high quality content that has laid a solid foundation for our journal going forward. Also, they were quick! We are proud to boast of our rapid time to first decision, which sits at a little over a month. Their dedication allows ESWRT to publish content at a rate that puts us near the top of our peer journals. And in this day and age of research, where we all want near-instant dissemination of our highest impact work, we think this pace will continue to make ESWRT an attractive option within our community. I'd also be remiss to not acknowledge the tremendous staff at the RSC and our outstanding Editorial Board and Advisory Board members. Starting a new journal takes the proverbial village, and this team has provided countless and invaluable feedback, vision, and promotion (not to mention good-natured pestering of potential contributors).

So what can you expect from ESWRT in our second volume? More of the same and then some. We will continue with our signature efforts of focused themed content. We are currently wrapping up our call for papers on our themed issue at the interface of water quality and public health devoted to the Drinking Water Exposome (http://blogs.rsc.org/ew/2015/07/17/call-for-papers-drinking-water-exposome-themed-issue/). Led by Guest Editors and ESWRT Editorial Board members Lut Raskin of the University of Michigan and Peter Vikesland of Virginia Tech, this issue slated for launch later in 2016 will focus on the chemical and microbial exposures that can occur via consumption or use of drinking water. Also in development is a themed issue on membrane technologies to be led by Editorial Board member Long Nghiem of the University of Wollongong. And as I previously mentioned, we have an exciting line-up of Emerging Investigators slated for 2016, and we expect the series to continue to highlight some of the brightest early career minds in our field. I encourage you to follow these and all other ESWRT developments on our blog (http://blogs.rsc.org/ew/) and social media.

In 2016, you can also expect more synergy with our sister Environmental Science journals. These are certainly exciting times across the environmental science family. Editor-in-Chief Vicki Grassian, now at U.C. San Diego, and her team at Environmental Science: Nano have established themselves as one of the authoritative research outlets in the rapidly growing field of environmental nanotechnology. Meanwhile, at Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts, new Editor-in-Chief Kris McNeill of ETH Zurich is poised to continue the great work of Frank Wania and take that journal to new heights. Collectively, between these sister journals, we have you and all of your research needs in the area of environmental science and engineering covered. In the New Year, look for more joint efforts between these journals. In fact, I am proud to announce that this year we will be launching a new Environmental Science Twitter account (@EnvSciRSC), which will highlight content from all three journals. This unified Twitter feed will allow you to stay up to date with all of the exciting research published across the RSC's three environmental journals, while also sharing information on relevant activities at the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Finally, the entire team at the RSC will be working diligently to continue our growth, expand our footprint, and reach a broader audience of contributors and readers. We are proud to announce two Environmental Science focused symposia to be held in China during June of 2016, to be hosted at the respective institutions of ES team members Lizhong Zhu and Liang-Hong Guo. Stay tuned for more details on our blog and Twitter feed about these and other events where ES team members will be participating.

So, without further ado, welcome to the first issue of our sophomore year. Last year, in our inaugural issue, I introduced ESWRT as a “better alternative”. I hope, after a year of hard work and development, we are gaining your trust and proving that we are indeed a worthwhile outlet for your research. We do not take your trust and commitment to ESWRT for granted, and we will continue our efforts to help grow ESWRT into a respected and sought out research journal for the latest and greatest research in the fields of water research, technology and sustainability. If there are things we could do better, please let us know (E-mail: eswater-rsc@rsc.org). We are eager to adapt. If you've already published with us, thanks for your contribution and support. We sincerely appreciate it. And if you enjoyed your experience working with the team at ESWRT, please send us more of your work and tell a friend or colleague. 2016 stands to be a great year, and we look forward to growing with you.

 

Dave Cwiertny

Editor-in-Chief

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