Environmental fate and hazard of agricultural and pharmaceutical micropollutants

he widespread use of agricultural chemicals (e.g. pesticides, fertilizers) and pharmaceuticals (e.g. antibiotics, hormones) has led to their continuous release into aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. These substances enter the environment via agricultural (crop production and animal farming) runoff, industrial processes, wastewater treatment plant effluents, as well as human consumption and household activities. Because they are designed to be biologically active at low concentrations, they present a unique challenge. Their environmental fate involves complex processes: sorption to soils, volatilization, and degradation via biotic or abiotic pathways. However, many resist breakdown, leading to persistence or the emergence of toxic transformation products. The hazard lies in their chronic toxicity. Even at nanogram-per-liter levels, these micropollutants may cause endocrine disruption in wildlife, trigger bioaccumulation up the food chain, and drive the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Understanding their persistence and ecological toxicity is critical for developing targeted mitigation strategies to protect biodiversity and public health.This special issue aims to advance our understanding of how agricultural and pharmaceutical micropollutants behave in the environment and the risks they pose to ecosystems. While standard monitoring captures immediate contaminants, we urgently need to decode their long-term environmental fate—specifically how persistent pesticides and widely used pharmaceuticals like antibiotics, analgesics, and psychiatric drugs transport across soil-water interfaces and break down into toxic transformation products. The primary goal is to bridge the gap between exposure chemistry and ecological reality. We seek high-quality research that quantifies both the immediate and long-term consequences of these contaminants. This requires a dual focus: assessing acute toxic effects from high-concentration agricultural runoff events, alongside the insidious chronic hazards of low-dose, multi-generational exposure, such as endocrine disruption, bioaccumulation, and the acceleration of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Beyond identifying risks, this issue aims to spotlight actionable solutions. We welcome innovative studies on detection method development, advanced water treatment technologies, smart agricultural management, predictive ecotoxicological modeling, and other relevant topics. Ultimately, this collection will provide an interdisciplinary platform for environmental chemists, toxicologists, and policymakers, delivering the mechanistic insights and mitigation strategies necessary to safeguard global ecosystems and public health.We specifically invite submissions that advance our mechanistic understanding of contaminant emergence and dynamics, environmental microbiology, and ecological risks. Contributions should focus on the high-resolution tracking of modern pesticides, pharmaceuticals (such as antibiotics, analgesics, and psychiatric drugs), and potentially toxic elements (PTEs) like heavy metals and metalloids. We welcome research exploring the co-occurrence and synergistic effects of these varied pollutants, with particular emphasis on their soil-water transport, environmental persistence, and the identification of toxic transformation products. We highly encourage studies utilizing specific biomarkers to untangle the ecotoxicological distinctions between acute spike exposures—such as seasonal agricultural pesticide runoff events—and the chronic, multi-generational impacts of low-dose chemical and element mixtures on target organisms and microbial communities. Furthermore, we welcome innovative papers detailing advanced chemical and biological remediation strategies, alongside method development in environmental analysis, sample preparation techniques, and their direct application in monitoring studies. Topic editors: Rajeev Pratap Singh, Eszter Takács, András Székács, Szandra Klátyik Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/84081/environmental-fate-and-hazard-of-agricultural-and-pharmaceutical-micropollutants