Yener Ulus
Zeynep Eren
Helong Jiang- 1Department of Biology and Environmental Science, Auburn University at Montgomery, Montgomery, AL, United States
- 2Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
- 3Environmental Engineering Department, Ataturk University, Erzurum, Türkiye
- 4College of Nanjing, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, China
- 5State Key Laboratory of Lake and Watershed Science for Water Security, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, China
Editorial on the Research Topic
Polluted ecosystems: how global climate change drives pollutant dynamics in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems
The impact of global climate change is altering the behavior and fate of pollutants across many ecosystems (Ma and Cao, 2010; Borgå et al., 2022). There are increasing amount extreme weather events including wildfires, floods, hurricanes, heatwave, and droughts (Stott, 2016; Otto, 2016). Although, these extreme changes in climate alter the fate, mobility and bioavailability of contaminants (Ulus et al., 2022; Bolan et al., 2024), there are limited research on the impact of global climate change on pollutants. Therefore, a Research Topic titled “How Climate Change Influences Pollutant Behavior and Movement in Both Aquatic and Terrestrial Environments” created for Frontiers in Environmental Science.
This Research Topic consists of five papers that highlight critical research on extreme weather events’ impacts on water quality, post-fire forest recovery, metal distribution under floods, trace element cycling shaped by human and climate pressures, and innovative solutions from activated carbon to hybrid systems tackling ash. For instance, Ulus et al. found that post-fire forest management influences soil metal mobility. The impact of wildfires extends to aquatic systems. Uzun provided crucial insights into the effectiveness of powdered activated carbon to remove 2-methylisoborneol and geosmin in waters affected by ash-derived natural organic matter. Beyond fire, extreme events such as floods and heavy rains intensify metal pollution in industrial regions, mobilizing contaminants and pushing the heaviest burdens downstream (Shen et al.). Trace element studies further reveal that copper, zinc, and cadmium biomagnify in food webs (Cheng et al.). Extreme weather events, also reshape microbial communities and degrade quality of water sources which elevates risks of waterborne diseases and mobilization of pollutants (Huang et al.).
The papers published in this Research Topic highlighted the urgency of understanding and addressing how climate change is reshaping contaminant dynamics in a changing environment. In response to these shifts, developing advanced solutions for the prevention, monitoring, and remediation of emerging pollutants is becoming essential under changing climate. In addition, this Research Topic also underlines the connected nature of climate and pollution impacts across ecosystem boundaries. This can be exemplified by two dynamics: disturbances of terrestrial ecosystems like wildfires, which have cascading effects on aquatic systems, and industrial contamination patterns which are strongly influenced by hydrological extremes.
In this context, we recommend interdisciplinary studies to integrate climate science, environmental chemistry, ecology, and even social sciences in the future research. To inform these frameworks and validate interdisciplinary models, we require long-term monitoring studies capable of capturing the evolving temporal dynamics between climate and pollution. Investment in adaptive management frameworks that can respond to changing conditions will be critical for protecting ecosystem and human health in an era of accelerating environmental change.
The studies presented in this Research Topic provides a groundwork for understanding these complex interactions. However, more research is needed to improve pollution monitoring, forecasting, and remediating as well as to develop tools for addressing future challenges driven by global climate change.
Author contributions
YU: Writing – original draft, Writing – review and editing. ZE: Writing – review and editing. HJ: Writing – review and editing.
Funding
The author(s) declared that financial support was not received for this work and/or its publication.
Conflict of interest
The author(s) declared that this work was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
The author HJ 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.
Generative AI statement
The author(s) declared that generative AI was not used in the creation of this manuscript.
Any alternative text (alt text) provided alongside figures in this article has been generated by Frontiers with the support of artificial intelligence and reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, including review by the authors wherever possible. If you identify any issues, please contact us.
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.
References
Bolan, S., Padhye, L. P., Jasemizad, T., Govarthanan, M., Karmegam, N., Wijesekara, H., et al. (2024). Impacts of climate change on the fate of contaminants through extreme weather events. Sci. Total Environ. 909, 168388. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.168388
Borgå, K., McKinney, M. A., Routti, H., Fernie, K. J., Giebichenstein, J., Hallanger, I., et al. (2022). The influence of global climate change on accumulation and toxicity of persistent organic pollutants and chemicals of emerging concern in arctic food webs. Environ. Sci. Process. and Impacts 24, 1544–1576. doi:10.1039/d1em00469g
Ma, J., and Cao, Z. (2010). Quantifying the perturbations of persistent organic pollutants induced by climate change. Environ. Sci. and Technol. 44 (22), 8567–8573. doi:10.1021/es101771g
Otto, F. E. (2016). The art of attribution. Nat. Clim. Change 6 (4), 342–343. doi:10.1038/nclimate2971
Stott, P. (2016). How climate change affects extreme weather events. Science 352 (6293), 1517–1518. doi:10.1126/science.aaf7271
Keywords: aquatic ecosystems, climate change, pollutant dynamics, pollutant fate, pollutant transport, terrestrial ecosystems
Citation: Ulus Y, Eren Z and Jiang H (2026) Editorial: Polluted ecosystems: how global climate change drives pollutant dynamics in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Front. Environ. Sci. 13:1772617. doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1772617
Received: 21 December 2025; Accepted: 31 December 2025;
Published: 12 January 2026.
Edited and Reviewed by:
Oladele Ogunseitan, University of California, Irvine, United StatesCopyright © 2026 Ulus, Eren and Jiang. 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: Zeynep Eren, emVyZW5AYXRhdW5pLmVkdS50cg==