Science of the Total Environment Impact Factor

The archived IF of 8.0 placed STOTEN solidly in Q1, the top quarter of 374 Environmental Sciences journals. But rank 39 meant there were 38 journals above it, many of them more selective. Nature Climate Change, ES&T, and Water Research all sat higher.

The Journal Citation Indicator (JCI) of 1.52 is worth checking separately. JCI normalizes across fields, so a 1.52 means STOTEN papers are cited 52% more than the global average for environmental science. That's respectable but not exceptional, ES&T's JCI runs closer to 2.5.

STOTEN's Immediacy Index (2.1) tells you that papers get cited quickly after publication. The Cited Half-Life of 5.4 years is moderate, STOTEN papers keep accumulating citations for several years, but they aren't the kind of long-tail references that some geochemistry or ecology journals produce (those often have half-lives above 8 years).

The archived five-year JIF (8.6) running above the two-year (8.0) confirms that STOTEN papers historically continued gathering citations beyond the initial two-year window. Environmental policy papers in particular tend to pick up citations as regulations evolve and meta-analyses cite them.

The current 2026 planning conclusion is narrower: the 8.0 value can still explain where STOTEN sat in the last available JCR record, but it should not be used as a current-JIF shortcut. If a department, funder, or promotion committee asks for a current Web of Science record, the live title lookup matters more than this archived number.

Two things stand out. First, ES&T and Water Research both have longer Cited Half-Lives, their papers stay in circulation longer. Second, ES&T publishes about half as many articles at a higher IF, which means higher per-paper visibility. If you're choosing between STOTEN and ES&T, the gap isn't just the IF number, it's how long each paper stays visible and how crowded the venue is.

The year-by-year table below is a planning artifact, not a substitute for a live JCR export. Use it to understand the archived citation trajectory, then verify the current title record before quoting any metric in formal materials.

STOTEN grew steadily from ~4.6 in 2017 to a peak of ~10.8 in 2021. The 2021 spike happened across environmental science, pandemic-related research on air quality, water contamination, and environmental health drove a citation surge. The correction since then was gradual, landing at 8.0 in the last available JIF row. That's still nearly double the 2017 value.

The year-over-year move was down from about 8.8 to 8.0 before the current-release issue. That means two things should be kept separate: the old trend line was a post-peak normalization, while the 2026 question is whether authors can cite a current 2025 JIF at all.

This is not the table you use to pick a venue. It is the table you use to avoid a common metric mistake: comparing STOTEN's archived environmental-science JIF with broad prestige journals that have different audiences, article mixes, and review bars.

Across our STOTEN pre-submission review work, the metric question rarely decides whether a paper is ready. The papers that struggle usually have a visible mismatch between the archived JIF conversation and the actual manuscript package. We would run these checks before treating STOTEN as a sensible target.

STOTEN pattern: the abstract claims "total environment," but the methods measure one compartment. We see manuscripts where the title promises water-soil-air relevance, while the methods only test a contaminant in one water matrix or one laboratory sorption setup. For STOTEN, the abstract, methods, figures, and discussion need to show the connection across environmental spheres. If Figure 1 is only a materials-performance curve and there is no field matrix, fate pathway, or exposure route, the 8.0 archived JIF is irrelevant.

STOTEN pattern: a regional monitoring dataset has no transferable claim. In our review work, these manuscripts often have many tables, maps, and concentration values, but the introduction never states what the dataset changes about environmental fate, exposure, risk, or management. The manuscript component to inspect is the final paragraph of the introduction: if it only says "this is the first study in region X," the contribution is too local for STOTEN unless the methods or results reveal a generalizable mechanism.

STOTEN pattern: lab remediation experiments ignore environmental realism. Batch adsorption, catalyst, or degradation papers fail when the experimental design uses clean water, unrealistic contaminant concentrations, no competing ions, no natural organic matter, and no reuse or toxicity check. The manuscript needs a methods table that shows environmentally relevant concentration ranges and a results figure that compares performance under realistic matrix conditions.

STOTEN pattern: the metric is used to justify a weak shortlist. Authors sometimes choose STOTEN because "8.0 is high enough" while the paper actually fits Water Research, Chemosphere, Environmental Pollution, or a materials journal better. A stronger shortlist starts with the manuscript's evidence type: field environmental signal, cross-compartment fate, remediation mechanism, exposure-health link, or policy-relevant monitoring. The archived JIF should only refine the shortlist after that fit decision is clear.

In our analysis of STOTEN-targeted submissions, three specific rejection patterns show up before authors ever reach the metric question. Editors screen for environmental-systems substance first; the archived JIF does not rescue a paper that reads like chemistry, materials science, or a local monitoring note with environmental language added late.

Scope mismatch: chemistry or materials science submitted as environmental science. STOTEN's aims and scope state the journal publishes research covering the environment as a whole, with emphasis on interactions among environmental spheres. The most common desk-rejection trigger: papers about novel adsorbent materials, catalysts, or analytical methods that include a paragraph about "potential environmental applications" without actual environmental data. STOTEN editors identify this pattern within the abstract.

A new nanocomposite tested only in pure aqueous solution is a materials science paper; the same material tested in real wastewater, sediment, or soil with environmental fate data is an environmental science paper. The distinction must be visible in the methods and results, not just the framing.

Regional case study without a generalizable finding or novel methodology. STOTEN's editorial guidelines state that papers should "add new knowledge to a field by providing novel findings." The journal receives a large volume of monitoring and contamination surveys from single regions or localities. These papers are desk-rejected unless they introduce a novel methodology, identify a new exposure pathway, or produce a finding that challenges existing assumptions about contamination dynamics at a category-level.

"Heavy metals in agricultural soil from [province]" using standard ICP-MS and established extraction methods, where concentrations fall within the published range for comparable regions, generates no new knowledge. The introduction must articulate what question this geography or dataset answers that the existing literature could not.

Single-compartment study when the journal's identity is cross-compartment connections. STOTEN's name and stated scope reflect a specific editorial philosophy: understanding contaminant behavior across soil, water, air, and biota simultaneously. Papers that measure contamination in one compartment without addressing transport, transformation, or exposure to adjacent compartments are consistently redirected to more narrowly scoped journals like Water Research, Atmospheric Environment, or Chemosphere. The journal's reviewers are specifically looking for cross-compartment evidence or a mechanistic argument explaining why the finding has implications beyond the measured matrix.

A STOTEN environmental systems framing check can assess whether the manuscript's framing meets the scope and whether the contribution is distinct enough from existing regional monitoring literature.

The practical submission screen is now more concrete than "is the old JIF high enough?"

This page is for authors who still see "science of the total environment impact factor" in search results and need to know whether the number is current enough to use before submitting.