Environmental Behavior, Ecological Effects and Health Risks of Pollutants in Aquatic Ecosystems

This Special Issue Reprint brings together eight peer-reviewed articles on the behaviors, ecological effects, and health risks of pollutants in aquatic ecosystems. Drawing on environmental science, ecology, Earth science, and chemistry, it links pollutant sources and processes with biological responses and ecological risks. The studies range from pollution sources and transport to ecosystem responses and monitoring. Heavy-metal research assesses health risks in drinking-water sources affected by polder-retreat projects and reviews two decades of source-apportionment methods for soil and water systems. Investigations of rivers and paddy fields show how land-use change, dam construction, and irrigation levels influence sediment and nutrient export, nitrogen transformation, and microbial activity. At organism and ecosystem levels, experiments reveal synergistic oxidative damage caused by BDE3 and copper in Salvinia natans and characterize fish responses to turbidity. Machine learning, remote sensing, Bayesian networks, and Random Forest models are also used to detect harmful algal blooms and identify factors associated with black blooms, including ferrous iron and sulfide. By combining field observations, laboratory experiments, bibliometric analysis, and computational modeling, this Reprint connects pollution assessment with process understanding and ecological monitoring. It provides a reference for aquatic risk evaluation, pollution control, ecosystem protection, and sustainable water management for researchers, environmental managers, and policymakers.