Guide for Authors
Aims
and Scope
Environmental Science and Policy promotes communication among government, business and industry, academia, and
non-governmental organisations who are instrumental in the solution of environmental problems. It also seeks to advance interdisciplinary
research of policy relevance on environmental issues such as climate change, biodiversity, environmental pollution and wastes, renewable
and non-renewable natural resources, and the interactions between these issues. The journal emphasises the linkages between these environmental
issues and social and economic issues such as production, transport, consumption, growth, demographic changes, well-being, and health.
However, the subject coverage will not be restricted to these issues and the introduction of new dimensions will be encouraged.
Editorial policy
Environmental Science and Policy will publish original research papers, research and
policy reviews and notes, forum discussion of published work and book reviews in English. Submitted papers should address environmental
issues of international significance, aim at informing policy debates and making, and be of international relevance. Hence, manuscripts
focusing on local issues are welcome if they suggest research strategies or offer lessons that valuable more generally. Manuscripts which
reveal the need for further scientific research are also welcome. All contributions will be independently reviewed. Proposals for ordinary
and guest-edited special issues are encouraged and welcomed.
Ethics
in publishing
For information on Ethics in publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication see
http://www.elsevier.com/publishingethics
and
http://www.elsevier.com/ethicalguidelines.
Conflict of interest
All authors
are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other relationships with
other people or organizations within three years of beginning the submitted work that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived
to influence, their work. See also
http://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest.
Submission
declaration
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form
of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that
its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and
that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere including electronically in the same form, in English or in any other language,
without the written consent of the copyright-holder.
Changes to authorship
This policy concerns
the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts:
Before the accepted manuscript
is published in an online issue: Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names, must be sent to the Journal
Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include: (a) the reason the name should be added or removed,
or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition,
removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed.
Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Journal Manager to the corresponding author, who must
follow the procedure as described above. Note that: (1) Journal Managers will inform the Journal Editors of any such requests and (2)
publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until authorship has been agreed.
After the accepted manuscript
is published in an online issue: Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article published in an online issue
will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.
Copyright
Upon
acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' (for more information on this and copyright
see
http://www.elsevier.com/copyright). Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information.
An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement'
form or a link to the online version of this agreement.
Subscribers may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles
including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of the Publisher is required for resale or distribution
outside the institution and for all other derivative works, including compilations and translations (please consult
http://www.elsevier.com/permissions).
If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit
the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use by authors in these cases: please consult
http://www.elsevier.com/permissions.
Retained author rights
As an author you (or your employer or institution) retain certain rights; for details
you are referred to:
http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.
Role of the funding source
You
are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly
describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing
of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this
should be stated. Please see
http://www.elsevier.com/funding.
Funding body agreements and
policies
Elsevier has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors whose articles appear in journals
published by Elsevier, to comply with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as conditions of their grant awards. To
learn more about existing agreements and policies please visit
http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies.
Open access
This journal offers you the option of making your article freely available to all via the ScienceDirect
platform. To prevent any conflict of interest, you can only make this choice after receiving notification that your article has been
accepted for publication. The fee of $3,000 excludes taxes and other potential author fees such as color charges. In some cases, institutions
and funding bodies have entered into agreement with Elsevier to meet these fees on behalf of their authors. Details of these agreements
are available at
http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies. Authors of accepted articles, who wish to take advantage of this
option, should complete and submit the order form (available at
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/openaccessform.pdf). Whatever
access option you choose, you retain many rights as an author, including the right to post a revised personal version of your article
on your own website. More information can be found here:
http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.
Language
and language service
Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of
these). Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission please visit
http://www.elsevier.com/languageediting
or our customer support site at
http://epsupport.elsevier.com for more information.
Submit your article
Please submit your article via
http://ees.elsevier.com/envsci
NB: with
immediate effect, due to the change in Editor in Chief, communications relating to newly submitted papers or raising new queries should
be addressed to the Geneva Editorial Office:
esp@unige.ch
Referees
Authors
are asked to identify and to submit contact details for three potential reviewers of their manuscript. Reviewer suggestions are REQUIRED
to encourage nomination of both specialists AND people outside the specific subdiscipline of the paper. These need not necessarily be
the famous leaders of the science (who are often too busy to respond) and can be emerging authorities whose work you respect but who
are totally independent of you and your institution. We emphasise that we always choose further reviewer(s) who have not been nominated
by you.
Review process
All eligible papers are reviewed on the basis of the criteria of
originality, quality, policy relevance and suitability for interdisciplinary audiences. Manuscripts are reviewed by at least two reviewers
chosen by the editors from among the suggested and other potential reviewers. The authors may be requested to revise conditionally accepted
manuscripts within 8 weeks of the receipt of reviews. The Editor-in-Chief approves manuscripts for publication.
Use of wordprocessing software
It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the wordprocessor
used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed
and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the wordprocessor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words.
However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one
grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic
text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts (see also the Guide to Publishing with Elsevier:
http://www.elsevier.com/guidepublication).
Note that source files of figures, tables and text graphics will be required whether or not you embed your figures in the text. See also
the section on Electronic artwork.
To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the 'spell-check' and 'grammar-check'
functions of your wordprocessor.
LaTeX
If the LaTeX file is suitable, proofs will be produced
without rekeying the text. The article should preferably be written using Elsevier's document class 'elsarticle', or alternatively any
of the other recognized classes and formats supported in Elsevier's electronic submissions system, for further information see
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorsview.authors/latex-ees-supported.
The Elsevier 'elsarticle' LaTeX style file package (including detailed instructions for LaTeX preparation) can be obtained
from the Quickguide:
http://www.elsevier.com/latex. It consists of the file: elsarticle.cls, complete user documentation
for the class file, bibliographic style files in various styles, and template files for a quick start.
Article
structure
Authors should be as concise as possible. The maximum length of manuscripts, inclusive of title, author affiliations,
abstract, acknowledgements, references and figure captions is 7000 words. If the total number of figures and tables together exceeds
6, the word limit must be reduced at the rate of 200 words per item over 6. Authors are encouraged to maximise use of the "Supplementary
Material" facility to supply information which will only be available online.
Subdivision - numbered sections
Divide
your article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, ...), 1.2, etc. (the
abstract is not included in section numbering). Use this numbering also for internal cross-referencing: do not just refer to 'the text'.
Any subsection may be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line.
Appendices
If
there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc. Formulae and equations in appendices should be given separate
numbering: Eq. (A.1), Eq. (A.2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, Eq. (B.1) and so on. Similarly for tables and figures: Table A.1; Fig.
A.1, etc.
Vitae
Include in the manuscript a short (maximum 100 words) biography of each
author.
Essential title page information
•
Title.
Concise and informative.
Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.
•
Author names
and affiliations.
Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly. Present the authors'
affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter
immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including
the country name and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.
•
Corresponding author.
Clearly indicate
who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication.
Ensure that telephone and fax numbers
(with country and area code) are provided in addition to the e-mail address and the complete postal address. Contact details must be
kept up to date by the corresponding author.
•
Present/permanent address.
If an author has moved since the
work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a 'Present address' (or 'Permanent address') may be indicated as
a footnote to that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address.
Superscript Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.
Abstract
A concise and factual
abstract is required. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. An
abstract is often presented separately from the article, so it must be able to stand alone. For this reason, References should be avoided,
but if essential, then cite the author(s) and year(s). Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential
they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself.
Graphical abstract
A
Graphical abstract is optional and should summarize the contents of the article in a concise, pictorial form designed to capture the
attention of a wide readership online. Authors must provide images that clearly represent the work described in the article. Graphical
abstracts should be submitted as a separate file in the online submission system. Image size: Please provide an image with a minimum
of 531 × 1328 pixels (h × w) or proportionally more. The image should be readable at a size of 5 × 13 cm using a regular
screen resolution of 96 dpi. Preferred file types: TIFF, EPS, PDF or MS Office files. See
http://www.elsevier.com/graphicalabstracts
for examples.
Authors can make use of Elsevier's Illustration and Enhancement service to ensure the best presentation of their images
also in accordance with all technical requirements:
Illustration
Service.
Highlights
Highlights are mandatory for this journal. They consist
of a short collection of bullet points that convey the core findings of the article and should be submitted in a separate file in the
online submission system. Please use 'Highlights' in the file name and include 3 to 5 bullet points (maximum 85 characters, including
spaces, per bullet point). See
http://www.elsevier.com/highlights for examples.
Keywords
Immediately
after the abstract, provide a maximum of 6 keywords, using British spelling and avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts
(avoid, for example, 'and', 'of'). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the field may be eligible.
These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.
Units
The SI system should be used for
all scientific and laboratory data. If it is necessary to use other units they should be added in parentheses. Temperatures should be
given in degrees Celsius. Where units or abbreviations may cause ambiguity or be misunderstood by an international readership, units
should be explained and abbreviations spelled out in full. For example, the unit 'billion' should be qualified when used.
Formulae
Formulae should be numbered consecutively in the right-hand side of the column. Vectors and matrices
should be clearly indicated. Special symbols should be identified in the margin. Care should be taken to avoid confusion between letters
and numerals.
Electronic artwork
General points
• Make sure you use uniform
lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
• Save text in illustrations as 'graphics' or enclose the font.
• Only
use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Times, Symbol.
• Number the illustrations according to their
sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
• Provide captions to illustrations
separately.
• Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version.
• Submit each figure as a separate file.
A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available on our website:
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions
You
are urged to visit this site; some excerpts from the detailed information are given here.
Formats
Regardless of
the application used, when your electronic artwork is finalised, please 'save as' or convert the images to one of the following formats
(note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below):
EPS: Vector drawings.
Embed the font or save the text as 'graphics'.
TIFF: Color or grayscale photographs (halftones): always use a minimum of 300 dpi.
TIFF: Bitmapped line drawings: use a minimum of 1000 dpi.
TIFF: Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (color or grayscale): a
minimum of 500 dpi is required.
If your electronic artwork is created in a Microsoft Office application (Word, PowerPoint, Excel)
then please supply 'as is'.
Please do not:
• Supply files that are optimised for screen use (e.g., GIF, BMP, PICT,
WPG); the resolution is too low;
• Supply files that are too low in resolution;
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately
large for the content.
Color artwork
Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable
format (TIFF, EPS or MS Office files) and with the correct resolution. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable color
figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in color on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and
other sites) regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in color in the printed version.
For color reproduction
in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. Please indicate
your preference for color: in print or on the Web only. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Please note: Because of technical complications which can arise by converting
color figures to 'gray scale' (for the printed version should you not opt for color in print) please submit in addition usable black
and white versions of all the color illustrations.
Figure captions
Ensure that each illustration
has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (
not on the figure
itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations
used.
Tables
Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text.
Place footnotes to tables below the table body and indicate them with superscript lowercase letters. Avoid vertical rules. Be sparing
in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in tables do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article.
References
Citation in text
Please ensure that every reference cited in the
text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Unpublished
results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references
are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of
the publication date with either 'Unpublished results' or 'Personal communication'. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that
the item has been accepted for publication.
Web references
As a minimum, the full URL should
be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to
a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different
heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.
Reference management software
This
journal has standard templates available in key reference management packages EndNote (
http://www.endnote.com/support/enstyles.asp)
and Reference Manager (
http://refman.com/support/rmstyles.asp). Using plug-ins to wordprocessing packages, authors only
need to select the appropriate journal template when preparing their article and the list of references and citations to these will be
formatted according to the journal style which is described below.
Reference style
Text:
All citations in the text should refer to:
1.
Single author: the author's name (without initials, unless there is ambiguity)
and the year of publication;
2.
Two authors: both authors' names and the year of publication;
3.
Three or more authors:
first author's name followed by 'et al.' and the year of publication.
Citations may be made directly (or parenthetically). Groups
of references should be listed first alphabetically, then chronologically.
Examples: 'as demonstrated (Allan, 2000a, 2000b, 1999;
Allan and Jones, 1999). Kramer et al. (2010) have recently shown ....'
List: References should be arranged first alphabetically
and then further sorted chronologically if necessary. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified
by the letters 'a', 'b', 'c', etc., placed after the year of publication.
Examples:
Reference to a journal publication:
Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J.A.J., Lupton, R.A., 2010. The art of writing a scientific article. J. Sci. Commun. 163, 51–59.
Reference to a book:
Strunk Jr., W., White, E.B., 2000. The Elements of Style, fourth ed. Longman, New York.
Reference to
a chapter in an edited book:
Mettam, G.R., Adams, L.B., 2009. How to prepare an electronic version of your article, in: Jones, B.S.,
Smith , R.Z. (Eds.), Introduction to the Electronic Age. E-Publishing Inc., New York, pp. 281–304.
Video
data
Elsevier accepts video material and animation sequences to support and enhance your scientific research. Authors who
have video or animation files that they wish to submit with their article are strongly encouraged to include these within the body of
the article. This can be done in the same way as a figure or table by referring to the video or animation content and noting in the body
text where it should be placed. All submitted files should be properly labeled so that they directly relate to the video file's content.
In order to ensure that your video or animation material is directly usable, please provide the files in one of our recommended file
formats with a preferred maximum size of 50 MB. Video and animation files supplied will be published online in the electronic version
of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect:
http://www.sciencedirect.com. Please supply 'stills'
with your files: you can choose any frame from the video or animation or make a separate image. These will be used instead of standard
icons and will personalize the link to your video data. For more detailed instructions please visit our video instruction pages at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Note: since video and animation cannot be embedded in the print version of the journal, please provide text for both the electronic and
the print version for the portions of the article that refer to this content.
Supplementary data
Elsevier
accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the author additional
possibilities to publish supporting applications, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files
supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect:
http://www.sciencedirect.com. In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please provide the data
in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should submit the material in electronic format together with the article and supply
a concise and descriptive caption for each file. For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction pages at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Data at PANGAEA
Electronic archiving of supplementary data enables readers to replicate, verify and build
upon the conclusions published in your paper. We recommend that data should be deposited in the data library PANGAEA (
http://www.pangaea.de).
Data are quality controlled and archived by an editor in standard machine-readable formats and are available via Open Access. After processing,
the author receives an identifier (DOI) linking to the supplements for checking. As your data sets will be citable you might want to
refer to them in your article. In any case, data supplements and the article will be automatically linked as in the following example:
doi:10.1016/0016-7037(95)00105-9. Please use PANGAEA's
web interface to submit your data (
http://www.pangaea.de/submit/).
Submission checklist
The
following list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal for review. Please consult this
Guide for Authors for further details of any item.
Ensure that the following items are present:
One author has been designated
as the corresponding author with contact details:
• E-mail address
• Full postal address
• Telephone and fax
numbers
All necessary files have been uploaded, and contain:
• Keywords
• All figure captions
• All tables
(including title, description, footnotes)
Further considerations
• Manuscript has been 'spell-checked' and 'grammar-checked'
• References are in the correct format for this journal
• All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited
in the text, and vice versa
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the
Web)
• Color figures are clearly marked as being intended for color reproduction on the Web (free of charge) and in print, or
to be reproduced in color on the Web (free of charge) and in black-and-white in print
• If only color on the Web is required,
black-and-white versions of the figures are also supplied for printing purposes
For any further information please visit our customer
support site at
http://support.elsevier.com.
Use of the Digital Object Identifier
The Digital Object Identifier
(DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned
to a document by the publisher upon the initial electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal medium
for citing a document, particularly 'Articles in press' because they have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The
correct format for citing a DOI is shown as follows (example taken from a document in the journal
Physics Letters B):
doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2010.09.059
When you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, the DOIs are guaranteed never to change.
Proofs
One set of page proofs (as PDF files) will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do
not have an e-mail address then paper proofs will be sent by post) or, a link will be provided in the e-mail so that authors can download
the files themselves. Elsevier now provides authors with PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe
Reader version 7 (or higher) available free from
http://get.adobe.com/reader. Instructions on how to annotate PDF files
will accompany the proofs (also given online). The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site:
http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/tech-specs.html.
If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return
them to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark
the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the
pages and e-mail, or by post. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text,
tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission
from the Editor. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately – please let us have all your
corrections within 48 hours. It is important to ensure that all corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully
before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that
Elsevier may proceed with the publication of your article if no response is received.
Offprints
The
corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. For an extra charge, paper offprints can
be ordered via the offprint order form which is sent once the article is accepted for publication. The PDF file is a watermarked version
of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions
of use.
For inquiries relating to the submission of articles (including
electronic submission) please visit this journal's homepage. Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially
those relating to proofs, will be provided by the publisher. You can track accepted articles at
http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle.
You can also check our Author FAQs (
http://www.elsevier.com/authorFAQ) and/or contact Customer Support via
http://support.elsevier.com.
