Environmental Science & Technology 'Under Review': What Each Status Means

Before the paper reaches external reviewers, the ES&T Editor-in-Chief or Executive Editor team performs initial assessment. All papers have a minimum of 2 prescreen reviews before making a Reject Without Review decision. About 30 to 40 percent of submissions are rejected at this stage.

A desk rejection most often means the editors concluded that the work would fit better at a sister ACS environmental journal (ES&T Letters for short-format, ES&T Water for water-specific, ES&T Engineering for engineering applications, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering for sustainability cascade) or that the environmental priority bar is not met.

After the desk screen, an ES&T manuscript moves through a multi-stage ACS editorial timeline:

• Day 0 to 3, administrative check: The ES&T editorial office confirms files are complete: manuscript with figures embedded, Supporting Information with environmental characterization data and analytical method validation, cover letter directed to the editor, conflict-of-interest declarations, ethics-statement documentation, and data-availability statement.

• Days 3 to 10, Executive Editor team read: The EIC or Executive Editor team reads the paper and evaluates environmental significance, methodological rigor, and ES&T family routing.

• Days 5 to 14, prescreen review: In parallel with the Executive Editor team's primary read, all papers receive a minimum of 2 prescreen reviews before any Reject Without Review decision. This minimum-2-prescreen-reviews safeguard runs alongside the desk-screen and adds 3 to 7 days to the timeline for ambiguous papers. This safeguard is ES&T's distinctive feature: no paper is desk-rejected without 2 editor-level reviews.

• Days 7 to 14, Associate Editor assignment: Papers that pass the prescreen review are assigned to an Associate Editor with domain expertise. Associate Editors select reviewers and monitor the progress of the review process.

• Days 14 to 28, reviewer recruitment: ES&T Associate Editors typically invite 2 to 3 external reviewers, with reviewer recruitment typically taking 5 to 10 days. The recruitment window can take longer because reviewers with topic-matched environmental subspecialty expertise (especially across atmospheric chemistry, water chemistry, soil chemistry, environmental policy, and biogeochemistry boundaries) are scarce.

• Days 14 to 49, active peer review: Once reviewers agree to review, the typical ES&T peer-review cycle lasts 2 to 3 weeks per reviewer per ACS guidance. Reviewers are asked to evaluate environmental significance, methodological rigor, analytical method validation, and reproducibility. Reviewer reports for ES&T tend to be focused; 1500 to 3000 word reports are typical given the 2-3 week reviewer target.

• After day 49, editorial synthesis: After reports return, the Associate Editor synthesizes them. Total submission-to-acceptance commonly runs 3 to 6 months for successful papers, including revision rounds.

• Rejection within 1 to 5 days: Administrative issue or immediate scope mismatch.

• Rejection within 7 to 14 days: Executive Editor team + prescreen-review desk rejection per the 30 to 40 percent figure.

• Still Under Review after 3 weeks: Strong signal. Paper passed the prescreen-review safeguard.

• Still Under Review after 10 weeks: Reviewer-recruitment or reviewer-report delay. A polite inquiry via the ACS Paragon Plus portal is appropriate.

• Status changes to "Decision Pending": Reports are in; expect a decision within 1 week.

This is the most common anxiety we hear from ES&T authors during the active editorial window. The honest answer: no, 5 weeks at Under Review puts you in the normal middle of ES&T's 4 to 8 week full peer-review distribution. Reports may already be in editorial synthesis with the Associate Editor preparing the recommendation.

Most reviewer-driven delays come from reviewer-recruitment timing for environmental subspecialty experts rather than slow reviews, because the 2-3 week reviewer target keeps active review fast. If the portal still says Under Review at the 8-week mark, the most likely explanation is that one of the assigned reviewers asked for an extension and the Associate Editor granted it. This is normal practice at ES&T.

What you should NOT do during the 5-to-8-week window is email the editorial office. ES&T Associate Editors are working academic environmental researchers managing 60+ active papers per year around their own laboratories; an inquiry at 5 weeks adds friction without accelerating the timeline.

If your ES&T paper is rejected after review, the natural cascade depends on what the reviewers and Associate Editor cited:

ES&T Letters is the natural ACS short-format cascade for environmental papers where the short-format Letters context fits.

ES&T Water is the ACS cascade for water-specific environmental papers.

ES&T Engineering is the ACS cascade for environmental engineering applications.

ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering is the ACS sustainability cascade.

Water Research is the external Elsevier cascade for water-treatment papers. Water Research uses Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager submission portal; editorial contact wr@elsevier.com.

Nature Sustainability is the external Springer Nature top-tier sustainability cascade. The Nature Sustainability Manuscript Tracking System at mts-natsust.nature.com handles submission; natsust@nature.com handles publisher-level inquiries.

ACS asks reviewers at ES&T to evaluate four things specifically. The table below maps each to actionable preparation.

Across ES&T-targeted manuscripts, and across Manusights review data from 50+ environmental science, chemistry, and engineering manuscripts, three named patterns generate the most consistent reviewer concerns and the most common reasons papers miss the editorial bar or fail the desk screen.

Narrow-environmental framing flagged at Executive Editor team and prescreen review. When the introduction frames the work too narrowly without broader environmental significance, ES&T rejection within 7 to 14 days is common. The strongest manuscripts make the environmental process visible in the title, abstract, first figure, and cover letter, then explain why the result matters beyond one contaminant, one treatment train, one geographic site, or one material platform.

Analytical method validation gaps surface as reviewer concerns. When analytical method validation is thin, especially missing recovery data, absent quality-control measures, weak detection-limit documentation, or no calibration/blank reporting, ES&T reviewers consistently request expanded validation sections. The strongest manuscripts make the Supporting Information reviewer-ready before submission, with instrument settings, replicate logic, field metadata, uncertainty estimates, and raw-data availability aligned to each primary result.

ACS environmental family cascade offers from Associate Editor. When the Associate Editor concludes the work is rigorous but the ES&T priority bar is not met, transfer offers to ES&T Letters for short-format work, ES&T Water for water-specific studies, ES&T Engineering for engineering applications, or ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering for sustainability-focused work are common. Authors should prepare the response plan so reviewer critiques can be reused if the paper moves inside the ACS environmental portfolio.

Source limitation: this guidance combines official guidance, public status and timing signals, and anonymized Manusights pre-submission review patterns; it does not use private ACS editorial records. Compared with official guidance, the useful reader-facing value is translating the status into environmental-significance, Supporting Information, analytical-validation, data-availability, and ACS routing checks authors can act on while waiting.

This page was created from ACS's public ES&T author guidelines at ACS author guidance, ACS Paragon Plus documentation (30 to 40 percent desk rejection rate, minimum-2-prescreen-reviews safeguard before any Reject Without Review decision, 2 to 3 week reviewer target, Editor-in-Chief + Executive Editor team + Associate Editor + domain expertise model), and Manusights pre-submission review experience with ES&T-targeted manuscripts.

For the ACS environmental landscape beyond ES&T, start with the Environmental Science & Technology journal overview, the ES&T submission guide, the ES&T review-time guide, and the ES&T cover-letter guide.

Then compare ES&T Letters (short-format), ES&T Water (water-specific), ES&T Engineering (engineering applications), ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering (sustainability cascade), and external environmental alternatives (Water Research, Journal of Hazardous Materials, Journal of Cleaner Production, Nature Sustainability).

The choice across these titles depends on whether the central contribution is top-tier ACS environmental (ES&T), short-format ACS environmental (ES&T Letters), water-specific (ES&T Water), engineering applications (ES&T Engineering), sustainability chemistry (ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering), water treatment (Water Research), hazardous materials (J Hazardous Materials), cleaner production (J Cleaner Production), or top-tier Nature Portfolio sustainability (Nature Sustainability).

Reviewers at ES&T typically draw from 2 to 3 environmental subspecialty experts. Editors screen and triage manuscripts before any external reviewer sees them with the minimum-2-prescreen-reviews safeguard, and preparing a response template that addresses both environmental-significance and analytical-method-validation perspectives accelerates revision rounds substantially.

For a pre-upload check of your manuscript against the ES&T environmental-priority-plus-method-validation bar before submission, our Environmental Science & Technology pre-submission diagnostic flags the framing and validation weaknesses most likely to surface in reviewer reports.