Special Issue in Environment International

 Environment International (EI) is a peer-reviewed international scientific journal that covers the broad field of environmental research quantifying relationships between exposure to environmental contaminants and their relationship with environmental health. Environmental issues in relation to environmental health being truly interdisciplinary, therefore articles considered in EI cover the entire spectrum of interactions, pathways, fate and effects for any chosen environmental hazard, either chemical, biological or physical. 

Environment International serves as a platform for academics, practitioners, regulators, and policy makers to share and discuss current developments and insights into how environmental processes and human activities shape and impact environmental and human health now and in the future. In doing so, it also brings forward opportunities to minimize public and environmental health risk and maximize resilience. 

Participants to the 8^th international Conference on Swimming Pool & Spa will be invited to submit manuscripts based on their conference presentations for possible publication in this highly ranked scientific journal (IF_{2017 Journal Citation Reports}= 7.320).

Editors

Editors-in-Chief : Ruth E. Alcock, Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK & Adrian Covaci, University of Antwerp, Wilrijk, Belgium.
Guest Editors : Jean-Luc Boudenne, Bruno Coulomb, Tarek Manasfi, Aix-Marseille University, Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry, Marseille, France. 

Special issue theme

The journal special issue will follow the broad theme of the 8^th ICSPS on health impacts, occurrence, analysis, treatment and impact mitigation of chemical and microbiological risks in swimming pools and spa, and similar environments.

Swimming pools and similar environments welcome more and more people, increasingly diversified (from baby swimmers to elderly persons), and in a wide range of establishments (from classical municipal swimming pools to hotels, camping sites, cruise ships, aquatic centres, therapy centres such as thermal or thalassotherapy centres. Optimal management of such facilities is thus required in terms of treatments and analysis of water, air and surface to ensure safety and hygiene. Respect of hygienic rules by users themselves have also proven to be a crucial step to reduce exposure to microbiological and chemical risks.

After physical risk (slipping, drowning), users and pool staff are indeed exposed to microbiological and chemical risks

The infectious agents recovered from swimming pool waters include a variety of pathogens embracing bacteria, viruses, protozoa and fungi. The major exposure routes to these microorganisms are the cutaneous and the dermal ones, but exposures via inhalation cannot be excluded, mainly by aerosols generated by spa, whirlpool, hot tubs, toboggans or other spray or sprinkling devices found in water parks or thermal pleasure parks (e.g goosenecks).

Chemical risks come mainly from disinfection by-products formed during disinfection (physical and/or chemical, such as chlorine or bromine based-disinfectants, ozone, UV, electrolysis and combination of them), by reaction with natural organic matter or, more often, with body fluids or personal-care products brought by bathers.

To prevent or to minimize these risks, to better ensure health safety in such specific environments that are swimming pools and similar environments, researches from various disciplines are still necessary and recent advances in these fields are awaited for this Special Issue and will be firstly considered for presentations during the 8^th International Conference on Swimming Pool and Spa.

For example, research to establish a list of opportunistic pathogens common in pool waters or present in bioaerosol still remain may be a useful direction for forthcoming studies so as to focus attention on identification and knowledge of factors leading to disinfectant- and antibiotic-resistance bacteria. More basically, infectious doses and exposure levels in pools of many microorganisms are not yet available.

Studies to date have explained the basic understanding related to some of the disinfection by-products in swimming pools, but many of them still have not been identified, and therefore their mode of formation and their toxicities remain unknown.

Biological mechanisms underlying the association between disinfection by-products exposure and chronic and acute adverse health effects remain unclear and need further validation in real-case studies.

Improved and approved analysis methods for pathogens and disinfection by-products are still necessary for routine or specific monitoring in disinfected waters but also for their determination in air and/or on surfaces.

Removal of precursors of disinfection by-products, or by products- themselves, as well as elimination of pathogens during treatment (use of new sorbents or filtration media, appearing of UV dechloramination systems or electrolytic devices, use of catalytic processes, ...), may also act as efficient technologies to prevent exposures of users to chemical and microbiological contaminants, but more assays in real conditions are still necessary to ensure health safety.

Progress in modelling (CFD, hydraulics and aeraulics, kinetics, ...), represents also another way forward that need to be developed to improving surveillance and early warning system and optimization of swimming pool design to reduce operational costs and develop energy efficient systems, whilst ensuring water and air quality is also of great concern.

Swimming pool legislation is also a valuable mean to protect public health but needs to be correlated to local (national) users' behaviours.

Building on the works of the seven previous conferences, the 8^th International Conference on swimming Pool & Spa intends to provide answers to these oustanding issues and to share most recent scientific knowledge and technological advances, offering thus a common and multidisciplinary approach to pool safety and health protection.

Submission instructions

The selection of the manuscripts for the special issue will be based on the originality, scientific merit, and experimental design of the papers submitted.
Poorly written manuscripts will be returned to the authors with a request to improve the quality of the paper prior to peer review. 

All manuscripts will have to be submitted electronically through the Elsevier Editorial System (EES) which will be accessed at http://ees.elsevier.com/envint/ 
Particular attention will be devoted by authors when submitting manuscripts by dentifying clearly their association with the Special Issue, via their submission letter and by selecting the right article type in EES (VSI : 8^th ICSPS). To prevent any possibility of publishing special issue papers into regular volume, it is mandatory that authors indicate the special issue article type along the paper title during the submission process. In your cover letter please mention that your manuscript is intended for the 8^th ICSPS Special Issue.

Submission schedule (estimated)

NEW : Extension deadline for submission to Sptember 30, 2019 

Papers will be pusblished as soon as accepted in the VSI.