Science of the Total Environment Time to First Decision

STOTEN routes submissions through Elsevier's Editorial Manager system. The visible status labels reflect the editorial pipeline:

"With Editor" means an editor has been assigned and has not yet taken a system action that changes the status. For STOTEN, this is where the editor checks whether the paper fits the updated total-environment scope and whether it should move to reviewer invitation, be returned for technical changes, or receive a desk decision.

"Under Review" means reviewers have been invited and peer review is underway. STOTEN's Guide for Authors says suitable submissions are typically sent to a minimum of two reviewers. If first-choice reviewers decline or one report is unusable, this stage can stretch without obvious status movement.

"Required Reviews Completed" means the target number of reviews has arrived and the handling editor is considering them. Elsevier notes that editors may still invite more reviewers or assign another editor, so the status can return to an earlier stage.

"Decision in Process" means the editors have begun entering the decision. This is usually days, not a fresh peer-review cycle.

If your paper sits at "With Editor" for more than 3 weeks, the most likely explanations are editor routing, suitability assessment, technical checks, or reviewer invitation not yet triggering the next status. After about 3 weeks, a polite inquiry is reasonable.

Three structural factors drive the timeline:

Scope triage. STOTEN's updated guide prioritizes original, interdisciplinary environmental research with broad impact and explicitly excludes several paper types: routine engineering studies without direct environmental effects, regional case studies without wider relevance, data reports without a substantial hypothesis, and machine-learning papers without new system insight. Fast first decisions often come from this suitability screen.

Subject-specific reviewer pools. STOTEN covers a wide range of environmental subdisciplines: aquatic chemistry, atmospheric chemistry, biogeochemistry, soil science, ecotoxicology, microplastics, emerging contaminants, climate science, and environmental policy. Reviewer pools for narrower subfields (e.g., specific contaminant transformation pathways, advanced statistical applications to environmental data) can be small enough that recruitment adds 2-3 weeks.

Reporting-standard expectations. STOTEN requires highlights, a graphical abstract, data availability language, editable files, and a complete submission package. Papers that omit these elements may be sent back or slowed before the scientific decision is visible.

If your paper has been at "Under Review" for 4-8 weeks, that is normal. The more useful calibration:

• Under Review less than 3 weeks: Reviewers may still be confirming or starting reports. No read.

• 3-6 weeks: Reports often arrive in this window.

• 6-9 weeks: Decision is imminent if both reports are in.

• 9+ weeks: Reviewer recruitment difficulty or split reviewer opinions. Inquiry appropriate.

Follow-up timing should depend on the status, not only on the public 3-day insight:

Do not write to the Editors-in-Chief for permission to submit; the STOTEN guide specifically tells authors to use the guidelines and submit if the manuscript is in scope.

• Reject: Usually with both reviewer reports attached. STOTEN editors weigh reviewer judgment heavily; a clean reject typically reflects substantive scientific or scope objections.

• Major revision: Most common at STOTEN. Expect requests to clarify methods, add quality-control statements, expand environmental-relevance discussion, or address specific reviewer questions.

• Minor revision: Common for well-prepared manuscripts; usually 2-4 weeks turnaround for the second round.

• Accept: Possible but uncommon as a first response.

Before submitting a revision with significant new analyses, a Science of the Total Environment submission readiness check can assess whether the response addresses the reviewers' core environmental-science concerns.

Across our STOTEN pre-submission reviews, the papers most likely to turn a fast triage metric into a long author wait have one of three manuscript-level problems. These are not private publisher rules. They are patterns we see when the official Science of the Total Environment scope, the Elsevier status model, and author-reported review timelines are read together.

Total-environment fit is asserted, not demonstrated. The official guide gives priority to studies that connect environmental spheres and advance fundamental understanding. A manuscript that reports pollutant measurements, a local case study, or a model output without explaining the atmospheric, hydrologic, ecological, exposure, or policy connection can sit in With Editor while the editor decides whether it is STOTEN-shaped or better suited to a narrower journal.

The paper needs external review but lacks review-ready evidence packaging. STOTEN requires highlights, a graphical abstract, data availability language, editable files, and complete figure/table material. When those elements are present but thin, the editor can still send the paper to reviewers, but reviewer comments often focus on basic interpretability: detection limits, data access, matrix relevance, uncertainty, and whether the environmental implication is visible without reconstructing the study.

Engineering or method-development emphasis overwhelms environmental meaning. STOTEN explicitly excludes treatment, technology, engineering, and machine-learning studies that do not directly affect or explain an environmental system. Those papers can trigger slow routing because they are not obviously wrong for environmental science, but they are not obviously right for STOTEN either.

The practical pre-submission fix is to make the manuscript answer the editor's timing question before the editor has to infer it: why this is a Science of the Total Environment paper, what environmental system the data explain, which methods and figures carry the evidence, where the data availability statement points, and what the graphical abstract makes visible at first pass. When those elements are coherent, the paper is easier to route. When they are scattered across the abstract, methods, supplementary files, and cover letter, the status can stay quiet while the editor decides whether the package is review-ready.

A STOTEN submission readiness check can identify whether your scope statement, graphical abstract, data statement, and environmental relevance argument are likely to clear that first editorial read.