Rejected from Science of The Total Environment? The 7 Best Journals to Submit Next

The most common reason for STOTEN rejection is that the paper reports environmental data from a specific location without broader implications. Measuring pollutant levels in a single river basin, characterizing soil contamination at one industrial site, or monitoring air quality in one city isn't enough unless the study reveals something transferable. STOTEN editors increasingly reject papers where the contribution is "we measured X in location Y" without mechanistic or methodological innovation.

Environmental monitoring studies from certain regions face extra scrutiny because STOTEN has already published many similar papers. If your paper reports heavy metal contamination in Chinese rivers, microplastic pollution in Southeast Asian waters, or air quality monitoring in Indian cities, you're competing against dozens of similar studies already in the journal. The bar for novelty in these geographic areas is higher than average.

STOTEN's title includes "total environment," and the editors take that seriously. Papers that examine a single pollutant in a single medium (water, air, or soil) without considering environmental interactions may be redirected to more specialized journals. The editors prefer papers that connect across environmental compartments, link pollution to health outcomes, or integrate multiple stressors.

If your paper develops a new analytical method for environmental monitoring but doesn't apply it to a real environmental question, STOTEN may reject it as a methods paper that belongs in an analytical chemistry journal instead.

Before choosing your next journal, a Science of The Total Environment manuscript fit check can tell you whether the issue was scope or something more fundamental to address first.

1. Environmental Pollution

Environmental Pollution is the most direct competitor to STOTEN for contamination and ecotoxicology papers. Published by Elsevier (same publisher), it has similar scope but lower submission volume, which means your paper gets more editorial attention. The impact factor (~7) is close to STOTEN's, and the reviewers are drawn from the same environmental science community. If STOTEN rejected your pollution study on borderline novelty grounds, Environmental Pollution's editors may be more receptive, particularly for papers with strong ecotoxicological components.

Best for: Pollution monitoring with ecological or health implications, contamination assessment, ecotoxicology studies.

2. Chemosphere

Chemosphere covers environmental chemistry, toxicology, and risk assessment with a broad scope that overlaps significantly with STOTEN. The impact factor (~8) is comparable, and the journal is known for slightly faster review turnaround than STOTEN. Chemosphere's particularly strong for papers on emerging contaminants (PFAS, microplastics, pharmaceuticals in the environment), and its editors are experienced with the types of environmental chemistry papers that STOTEN frequently receives.

Best for: Emerging contaminants, environmental fate and transport, environmental toxicology, chemical risk assessment.

3. Environmental Science & Technology

ES&T is a step up from STOTEN in both prestige and selectivity. Published by ACS, it has an impact factor around 11 and is arguably the most respected journal in environmental science and engineering. If STOTEN rejected your paper on borderline quality grounds and you believe the science is strong, ES&T is worth trying. The journal favors papers with mechanistic depth, innovative methodology, or quantitative risk assessment. ES&T isn't a safety option. It's for papers that are too good for the tier where STOTEN rejected them.

Best for: Environmental engineering, mechanistic environmental studies, policy-relevant environmental science.

4. Water Research

For water-focused papers, Water Research is more targeted than STOTEN and more prestigious in the water sector. The journal covers drinking water, wastewater, stormwater, and water reuse, with an impact factor around 11. If STOTEN rejected your water treatment or aquatic pollution paper, Water Research's specialized audience may appreciate the work more than STOTEN's generalist editors did. The journal expects detailed treatment performance data and real-world applicability.

Best for: Water treatment, wastewater engineering, aquatic pollution, water quality monitoring, water reuse.

5. Journal of Environmental Management

JEM publishes across environmental management, remediation, and policy, with a broader acceptance of applied and management-focused research. The impact factor (~8) is close to STOTEN's. JEM is a strong alternative for papers that emphasize environmental solutions, policy implications, or management strategies rather than pure science. If STOTEN rejected your paper for being "too applied" or "too management-focused," JEM's scope is built for exactly that type of work.

Best for: Environmental remediation, policy analysis, waste management, land use management, sustainability assessment.

6. Environmental Research

Environmental Research focuses on the intersection of environment and human health, covering exposure science, environmental epidemiology, and health risk assessment. If your STOTEN paper linked environmental contamination to human health outcomes, Environmental Research may be a better scope match. The journal has grown significantly in recent years, with an impact factor around 7 and increasing visibility in the environmental health community.

Best for: Environmental health, exposure assessment, epidemiology of environmental pollutants, risk assessment.

7. Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety

For papers with a strong ecotoxicological component, this journal provides a focused home. Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety publishes toxicity assessments, bioaccumulation studies, and ecological risk evaluations with an impact factor around 6. The acceptance rate (~30%) is more accessible than STOTEN, and the review process is straightforward. If STOTEN rejected your toxicity study for being "too narrow" or "too focused on a single organism," this journal's specialized reviewers will appreciate the depth.

Best for: Organism-level toxicity studies, bioaccumulation, ecological risk assessment, soil ecotoxicology.

Rejected as a "local monitoring study"? Either add broader significance (compare to global datasets, propose transferable mechanisms, include modeling) or submit to a regional environmental journal. Environmental monitoring data from a single location rarely succeeds at top international journals without a generalizable insight.

Rejected for "insufficient novelty" in pollution chemistry? Chemosphere and Environmental Pollution may set the novelty bar slightly differently. If the chemistry is strong, also consider whether the paper would fit Journal of Hazardous Materials, which values the hazardous materials angle over pure novelty.

Rejected for "too focused on water"? Water Research is specifically designed for water science. Your water treatment paper will find more knowledgeable reviewers there.

Rejected for "methods paper without environmental application"? Add real environmental samples and resubmit, or redirect to Analytical Chemistry or Talanta if the method is the primary contribution.

Rejected for weak statistical analysis or experimental design? Fix the statistics and study design before submitting anywhere. Environmental science journals are all tightening their standards for data analysis, sample size justification, and quality control.

Strengthen the "so what" paragraph. Every environmental paper needs to explain why the findings matter beyond the specific study site. Connect your results to global trends, policy implications, or mechanistic understanding that applies broadly.

Add quality control data. Blank samples, spike recoveries, certified reference materials, and method detection limits are expected for any environmental analytical paper. Missing QA/QC is an easy rejection trigger.

Consider adding health or ecological risk assessment. For pollution papers, calculating hazard quotients, cancer risk estimates, or ecological risk indices transforms a descriptive study into an actionable one. STOTEN and its alternatives all value risk context.

Improve your English. STOTEN's editors flag language quality issues frequently. If English isn't your first language, invest in professional editing before resubmitting. Many rejections that cite "insufficient novelty" are actually driven by poor presentation that prevents editors from seeing the real contribution.

Environmental science is competitive, and resubmitting the same paper to a different journal without changes rarely works. Run your manuscript through a manuscript scope and readiness check to check formatting, scope fit, and completeness before your next submission. Addressing preventable issues upfront keeps your paper from cycling through multiple journals unnecessarily.

Resubmit to the same tier if:

• Reviewers praised the science but identified specific fixable issues
• The rejection letter suggested "consider resubmission after addressing concerns"
• You can complete the requested revisions within 2-3 months
• No competing paper has appeared since your submission

Move to a different journal if:

• The rejection cited scope mismatch rather than quality concerns
• Multiple reviewers questioned the significance or novelty
• Your timeline requires a decision within the next 2-3 months
• A more specialized journal's readership would value the work more

Reframe the manuscript before resubmitting anywhere if:

• Reviewers identified fundamental methodology problems
• The core argument needs restructuring, not just polishing
• New experiments or analyses are needed to support the claims
• The rejection exposed a gap between claims and evidence

In our pre-submission review work with manuscripts targeting Science of the Total Environment, four patterns generate the most consistent desk rejections worth knowing before resubmission.

Environmental monitoring without mechanistic insight or actionable conclusions. Science of the Total Environment publishes work that advances understanding of environmental processes and their human health or ecosystem implications. We see this failure as the most common pattern in STOTEN desk rejections we review: papers presenting pollution surveys, contaminant concentration datasets, or exposure measurements from a single site or region without mechanistic investigation of sources, transport pathways, or ecological consequences. In our review of STOTEN submissions, we find that editors consistently require that the environmental data connect to either a mechanistic finding or an actionable management or policy conclusion.

Geographically isolated studies without extrapolation to broader environmental significance. STOTEN serves a global environmental science readership and expects that findings have relevance beyond the specific study location. We see this pattern in STOTEN submissions we review present site-specific environmental characterization: contamination levels in a particular river, microplastic abundance in a specific coastal zone, or air quality measurements from one city, without explaining how these findings contribute to understanding of the contaminant's behavior in comparable environments globally.

Statistical concerns in environmental exposure or risk assessment analyses. STOTEN reviewers scrutinize risk assessment methodology carefully. We see this pattern in submissions we review: human health risk assessments that apply exposure factors outside the validated range for the study population, ecological risk assessments using hazard quotients without adequate uncertainty quantification, or Monte Carlo analyses where the input distributions are not justified.

Limited novelty relative to an active monitoring literature. STOTEN publishes very high volumes of environmental monitoring studies and expects that new submissions add something the existing literature does not already have. Papers reporting contamination levels in a well-monitored media type or geographic region without a new analytical approach, a previously unmeasured contaminant, or a novel exposure pathway face consistent editorial concern about incremental contribution.

SciRev community data for Science of the Total Environment confirms desk rejections typically arrive within days, with post-review first decisions within 6-10 weeks, consistent with the Elsevier editorial cadence for this high-volume environmental journal.