Environmental Research Letters

Environmental Research Letters is published by IOP Publishing Ltd. and is in Zone 2 of Environmental Science & Ecology in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Climate variability and models, Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics and Meteorological Phenomena and Simulations, together about 25.8% of its articles. Its main subfields are Atmospheric Science and Global and Planetary Change. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)

Environmental Research Letters™ (ERL) is an open-access journal serving as the meeting place of research and policy communities concerned with the impact and outcomes of environmental change, and the critical need for management, adaptation, and solutions. ERL advocates for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaborations, encouraging researchers to engage with policymakers and industry, to address the most pressing, urgent, and critical challenges spanning natural and built environments. Topically, the journal’s scope covers all environmental research. What defines the journal is its focus on publishing high-impact research Letters. Research Letters should be concise and accessible, considering the broad and multidisciplinary readership of ERL. We expect the significance and impact of findings to be clearly communicated, demonstrating why the work is timely, requires urgent attention by a global audience, and demands rapid publication. Our social media accounts on LinkedIn and Bluesky promote ERL published content, new focus collections, journal development and Board Member activities. ERL will not consider the following: Research without a clear environmental impact or relevance. Studies that do not demonstrate a clear and significant contribution to either the advancement of the field and/or human efforts to address environmental global change. Highly specialized or technical methodological research, which is not accessible to a broad, multidisciplinary audience. Studies of this type may be appropriate for submission to Environmental Research Communications. Local case studies (city-scale and smaller) which do not adequately show how results/findings are timely and significant in a broader context outside of the study area. Studies of this type may be appropriate for submission to Environmental Research Communications.

From the journal's Aims & Scope

Research area (LetPub): Environmental Sciences

Editorial board by country: 13 in mainland China (about 19%); most named United States 25, Mainland China 13, United Kingdom 6, Germany 4, Australia 3 (67 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website · 2026-09-29

CAS Journal Ranking

Database indexing

SCIEScopusDOAJLetPub

International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub

Indexing the journal's website claims

EI CompendexWeb of ScienceINSPECCASCAB AbstractsGeoRefCurrent ContentsPublisher website

Other: ProQuest, CNKI, Baidu, J-Gate, Scilit, Astrophysics Data System, Naver, Semantic Scholar

As the journal's website lists them, not checked against each database; for Web of Science editions the records above apply.

Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.

Impact

Impact factor

5.34LetPub · 2026-09-13

CiteScore 2026-06

9.3LetPub · 2026-09-13

SJR 2026-06

1.93LetPub · 2026-09-13

SNIP 2026-06

1.41LetPub · 2026-09-13

h-index

97LetPub · 2026-09-13

h-index

266OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

i10-index

6,883OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

2-year mean citedness

4.69OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

Self-citation rate

7.4%LetPub · 2026-09-13

Share of gold OA articles

99.92%LetPub · 2026-09-13

Volume

Articles per year

920LetPub · 2026-09-13

Downloads per year (publisher)

1,600Publisher website · 2026-09-29

Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.

Other sources

Average review time (community reports)

about 3 monthsLetPub · 2026-09-13

Average acceptance (community reports)

Fairly easyLetPub · 2026-09-13

Submission to publication (journal-reported)

about 19 weeksDOAJ · 2026-10-25

Peer review

Double anonymous peer review, Single anonymous peer reviewDOAJ

Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.

• APC information ↗DOAJ
• Fee waivers ↗DOAJ
• Open access statement ↗DOAJ
• License & copyright ↗DOAJ

The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.

Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.

Publisher

IOP Publishing Ltd.

Country or region

ENGLAND

Language

English

Frequency

Quarterly

Founded

2006

ISSN

1748-9326

Official links

• Journal homepage ↗DOAJ
• Submission system ↗LetPub
• Author guidelines ↗DOAJ
• Aims & Scope ↗LetPub
• APC information ↗DOAJ
• Fee waivers ↗DOAJ
• Open access statement ↗DOAJ
• License & copyright ↗DOAJ
• Peer review process ↗LetPub
• Editorial board ↗LetPub
• Plagiarism policy ↗DOAJ