'Worldwide concern in scientific, industrial, and governmental com­ munities over traces of toxic chemicals in foodstuffs and in both abiotic and biotic environments has justified the present triumvirate of specialized publications in this field: comprehensive reviews, rapidly published progress reports, and archival documentations. These three publications are integrated and scheduled to provide in international communication the coherency essential for nonduplicative and current progress in a field as dynamic and complex as environmental contamination and toxicology. Until now there has been no journal or other publication series reserved exclusively for the diversified literature on "toxic" chemicals in our foods, our feeds, our geographical surroundings, our domestic animals, our wild­ life, and ourselves. Around the world immense efforts and many talents have been mobilized to technical and other evaluations of natures, locales, magnitudes, fates, and toxicology of the persisting residues of these chemicals loosed upon the world. Among the sequelae of this broad new emphasis has been an inescapable need for an articulated set of authorita­ tive publications where one could expect to find the latest important world literature produced by this emerging area of science together with documentation of pertinent ancillary legislation.

Introductory remarks.- EPA guidelines on environmental fate.- A rapid method for the estimation of the environmental parameters octanol/water partition coefficient, soil sorption constant, water-to-air ratio, and water solubility.- Determination of the vapor pressure, aqueous solubility, and octanol/water partition coefficient of hydrophobie substances by coupled generator column/liquid Chromatographic methods.- Estimation of the aqueous solubility of some aromatic compounds.- Measurement of pesticide vapor pressures.- Volatilization of pesticides from water.- Extrapolating photolysis rates from the laboratory to the environment.- Vapor-phase photochemistry of pesticides.- Biodegradation and biotransformation of pesticides in the earth's carbon cycle.- Soil degradation studies.- A simple method of evaluating soil breakdown of 14C-pesticides under field conditions.- Comparison of biodegradation rates in laboratory screening studies with rates in natural waters.- The disposition of pesticides in higher plants.- Determining environmental fate of pesticides with microagroecosystems.- Methods for studying pesticide atmospheric dispersal and fate at treated areas.- Estimation of environmental partitioning of organic chemicals in model ecosystems.- Models for pesticide behavior in terrestrial environments.- Regional behavior of pesticide residues in the United States.- Chemical exposure monitoring.- What constitutes an adequate model for predicting the behavior of pesticides in the environment?.