key: cord-1030089-tah6jr7v authors: Lodeiro, Carlos; Capelo-Martínez, José Luis; Santos, Hugo M.; Oliveira, Elisabete title: Impacts of environmental issues on health and well-being: a global pollution challenge date: 2020-08-06 journal: Environ Sci Pollut Res Int DOI: 10.1007/s11356-020-10265-6 sha: 7e1759619c8a86665e023473cd01236ecbe46b76 doc_id: 1030089 cord_uid: tah6jr7v Every 2 years, the environmental, chemical, and health research communities meet in Costa de Caparica, Portugal to showcase the latest technologies, methodologies and research advances in pollution detection, contamination control, remediation, and related health issues. Since its inception in 2015, the International Caparica Conference on Pollution Metal Ions and Molecules (PTIM) has become a biennial global forum to hear from those who protect the land, the water, and the air at all environmental scales. During past PTIM editions, we have learned about numerous efforts to develop new recovery and clean-up processes to restore the natural equilibria of our planet. Soil, land, water, and air are the key focus of efforts that will require deeper understanding and better control. Every 2 years, the environmental, chemical, and health research communities meet in Costa de Caparica, Portugal to showcase the latest technologies, methodologies and research advances in pollution detection, contamination control, remediation, and related health issues. Since its inception in 2015, the International Caparica Conference on Pollution Metal Ions and Molecules (PTIM) has become a biennial global forum to hear from those who protect the land, the water, and the air at all environmental scales. During past PTIM editions, we have learned about numerous efforts to develop new recovery and clean-up processes to restore the natural equilibria of our planet. Soil, land, water, and air are the key focus of efforts that will require deeper understanding and better control. We have also become aware of more and more cases of spill contamination, degradation of land and water, destruction of marine environments, misconduct by cities and enterprises, and the general disrespect of the environment shown by humans. In 2019 and 2020, we have witnessed once again how deeply health is connected with the environment. Our world is currently experiencing an extreme, yet predictable, health crisis linked to poor stewardship of the planet. Outbreaks of zoonoses, diseases that are transmissible between animals and humans, particularly those caused by coronaviruses, have led scientists to raise repeated alerts since 2002. Indeed, it is a problem followed daily by the environment program of the United Nations (UN 2020) and the World Health Organization (WHO 2020). The global pandemic produced by the dangerous, previously unknown virus SARS-CoV-2, has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths across five continents, with equally widespread economic and social repercussions. This problem resonates all too pertinently with the title of the third Environmental Science and Pollution Research (ESPR) special issue dedicated to the 3rd PTIM 2019-Impacts of Environmental Issues on Health and Well-being-a global pollution challenge. A surprising upside of the COVID-19 global pandemic has been the real-time observations of the numerous environmental effects of lockdown with the world becoming visibly greener and more habitable. Unusual benefits such as cleaner air and water, lower CO 2 emissions, and sudden relief from constant physical disturbance and noise were behind many beautiful pictures of wildlife on land and in the oceans. Now, the question is whether humans can consolidate these positive effects. The degradation of our blue planet is not just an environmental problem, because it presents serious global economic and health risks too. Trade, employment, and well-being all rely on nature, starting with the quality of the food we consume, the stability of our climate and weather, the purity of the air we breathe, the control of emergent and circulating disease, and as we have discovered from the various quarantine measures around the world, essential spaces for human contact, leisure, and relaxation. Without our natural environment, there would be no life and society. The appearance of COVID-19 helped nature send us an important message: our planet is able to restore itself in the absence of persistent pressure from human activities on the land, air, and water. The PTIM conference series is already a well-established international scientific forum in the field of environmental, chemistry, health, and well-being sciences, all hot fields in these COVID-19 times. The previous two editions in 2015 and 2017 were devoted to "New toxic emerging contaminants: beyond the toxicological effects", (Lodeiro et al. 2019) and "Global pollution problems, trends in detection and protection" (Lodeiro et al. 2016 ). Now, the central theme is health. In November 2019, the third edition of this superb conference took place once again in Costa de Caparica, Portugal, keeping to our tradition of collegiality and scientific endeavor to help the environment. We listened to amazing plenary talks by Joanna Burger (USA) on the temporal trends in heavy metals in the US Atlantic Coast Estuaries (Ostrom et al. 1999 (Gochfeld 2003; Burger et al. 2020) , and Elisabete Oliveira (Portugal) (Marcelo et al. 2020; Oliveira et al. 2018) , who explained their research covering topics as diverse as nanoparticles and food, antibiotic resistance and heavy metals, environmental clean-up applications of clay minerals, power plant wastewater metal analysis, metabolomics and the role of selenium, mechanisms of mercury and selenium toxicity, and the use of mesoporous nanomaterials and chemosensors for removing toxic agents and emerging contaminants. The picture was completed by the participation of close to 170 research fellows from five continents, contributing 70 oral talks, 20 "shotgun" presentations by young researchers, and more than 40 poster communications. We would like to congratulate Prof. Joanna Burger, who received the Proteomass Scientific Society Career Award 2019 for her contributions to eco-toxicology, behavioral toxicology, ecology, and environmental monitoring and assessment (Ostrom et al. 1999 (2002) (2003) (2004) (2005) , and then, he was appointed as researcher at REQUIMTE (FCT-UNL, 2005 -2009 . Then, he moved to the University of Vigo as principal investigator as IPP (Isidro Parga Pondal) researcherlecturer (2009) (2010) (2011) (2012) . He was appointed assistant professor in the FCT-UNL in 2012, where currently he is based. In 2017, he got the habilitation in Biochemistry Analytical Proteomics in Portugal at the FCT-UNL, and in 2018, he became associate professor in the Chemistry Department, FCT-UNL. Dr. Capelo is fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry since 2014, and a member of the Portuguese Chemistry Society and American Chemical Society. He co-leads the BIOSCOPE research group (www.bioscopegroup.org) and he is co-CEO of the PROTEOMASS Scientific Society and founder coceo of the Chemicals start-up Nan@rts. J. L. Capelo has developed research on the following topics: (i) quantification of metal and metal species in environmental and food samples, (ii) new methods to speed protein identification using mass spectrometry-based workflows, (iii) accurate bottom-up protein quantification, (iv) bacterial identification through mass spectrometry, (v) fast determination of steroids in human samples, (vi) biomarker discovery and development, (vii) application of sensors and chemosensors to the detection/quantification of metal ions, and (viii) nanoproteomics and nanomedicine. J.L Capelo is author or co-author of more than 245 manuscripts, 2 patents, 12 book chapters, and 4 books. His publications have more than 5500 citations. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and their methylated derivatives in settled dusts from end-of-life vehicle processing, urban, and rural areas, northern Vietnam: occurrence, source apportionment, and risk assessment Costs and benefits of delaying remediation on ecological resources at contaminated sites Risk to ecological sources following remediation can be due mainly to increased resource value of successful restoration: a case study from the Department of Energy's Hanford site Absolute quantification of selenoproteins and selenometabolites in lung cancer human serum by column switching coupled to triple quadrupole inductively couple plasma mass spectrometry Cases of mercury exposure, bioavailabity and absorption A comparison between ICP-MS and AFS detection for arsenic speciation in environmental samples Microbes and metals: interactions in the environment Protease amperometric sensor Progress in the development and use of ferrate(VI) salt as an oxidant and coagulant for water and wastewater treatment Global pollution problems, trens in detection and protection New toxic emerging contaminants: beyond the toxicological effects Magnetic, fluorescent and hybrid nanoparticles: from synthesis to application in biosystems Asia-Pacific mussel watch: monitoring contamination of persistent organochlorine compounds in coastal waters of Asian countries Synthesis and study of sorption properties of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-based hybrid materials Green and red fluorescent dyes for translational applications in imaging and sensing analytes: a dual-color flag ONU 2020 Revisiting the commons: local lessons, global challenges Metabolic impairments, metal traffic and syshormeostasis caused by the antagonistic interaction of cadmium and seleninum using organic and inorganic mass spectrometry Remediation of hexavalent chromium through adsorption by bentonite based Arquad 2HT-75 organoclays Nanoparticles in food packaging: Biodegradability and potential migration to food -a review His scientific interests are focused on (i) the identification of molecules involved in complex biological processes, characterize their structure, and monitor how their abundance may change during these processes, in order to gain insights into the underlying molecular mechanisms; (ii) nano-proteomics and nano-medicine; (iii) application of chemosensor to the detection/quantification of metals; (iv) mass spectrometry analysis of organic molecules, metal complexes, and supramolecular systems she obtained a second PhD degree in "Food Science and Technology" by Science Faculty of Ourense Campus in the University of Vigo, Spain; actually, she is an assistant researcher in the LAQV REQUIMTE FCT UNL by the "Estimulo" in Science FCT Program. E. Oliveira is author or co-author of more than 70 papers in international peer review journals, 5 book chapters, and 3 books which have received more than 1380 citations Acknowledgments We sincerely thank all our fellows who have contributed to this special issue of the ESPR journal published by Springer Editorial. We thank the ESPR Editor-in-Chief Prof. Philippe Garrigues who agreed to publish this special issue, and to the editorial assistants Ms. Funding information This work is funded by the supporters and sponsors Bruker, Paralab, Norleq, Labor Spirit, Sciex, Castelbel, Turismo de Portugal, TAP Air Portugal, Turismo de Lisboa, IATA, Springer (ESPR journal), Chemosensors MDPI journal, Edinburgh Instruments, Nanoarts, Royal Society of Chemistry through the Environmental Sustainability and Energy Division, and the Portuguese Chemical Society (SPQ).