Regional Environmental Change

Regional Environmental Change is published by Springer Berlin Heidelberg 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 change impacts on agriculture, Land Use and Ecosystem Services and Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management, together about 29.4% of its articles. Its main subfields are Global and Planetary Change. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)

Environmental changes of many kinds are accelerating worldwide, posing significant challenges for humanity. Solutions are needed at the regional level, where physical features of the landscape, biological systems, and human institutions interact.The goal of Regional Environmental Change is to publish scientific research and opinion papers that improve our understanding of the extent of these changes, their causes, their impacts on people, and the options for society to respond. "Regional" refers to the full range of scales between local and global, including regions defined by natural criteria, such as watersheds and ecosystems, and those defined by human activities, such as urban areas and their hinterlands.We encourage submissions on interdisciplinary research across the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities, and on more focused studies that contribute towards the solutions to complex environmental problems. Topics addressed include (i) the regional manifestations of global change, especially the vulnerability of regions and sectors; (ii) the adaptation of social-ecological systems to environmental change in the context of sustainable development; and (iii) trans-boundary and cross-jurisdictional issues, legislative and governance frameworks, and the broad range of policy and management issues associated with building, maintaining and restoring robust social-ecological systems at regional scales.The primary format of contributions are research articles, presenting new evidence from analyses of empirical data or else more theoretical investigations of regional environmental change. In addition to research articles, we also publish editorials, short communications, invited mini-reviews on topics of strong current interest, as well as special features that provide multifaceted discussion of complex topics or particular regions. The following topics are not within the scope of Regional Environmental Change and will be desk rejected: Waste management, Pollution control, Energy technologies / transitions, Green economy, Environmental psychology, Environmental engineering, Environmental economics, Environmental law. If your paper is largely based on some kind of index, derived from remote sensing or other spatial data, then you need to have a sound justification for doing so.

From the journal's Aims & Scope

Research area (LetPub): Environmental Sciences

Editor-in-chief James D. FordPublisher website

Editorial board by country: 13 in mainland China (about 11%); most named Mainland China 13, Germany 12, India 11, United States 10, Spain 9 (119 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website · 2026-09-29

CAS Journal Ranking

Database indexing

SCIESSCIScopusLetPub

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

Indexing the journal's website claims

CAB AbstractsCurrent ContentsPublisher website

Other: Google Scholar, EBSCO, ProQuest, Dimensions, CNKI, Baidu, AGRICOLA, Astrophysics Data System, Naver, OCLC, Portico, CLOCKSS, 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

4.19LetPub · 2026-09-13

Impact factor (publisher) 2025

4.2Publisher website · 2026-09-29

5-year impact factor (publisher) 2025

4.6Publisher website · 2026-09-29

CiteScore 2026-06

6.9LetPub · 2026-09-13

SJR 2026-06

1.11LetPub · 2026-09-13

SNIP 2026-06

1.3LetPub · 2026-09-13

h-index

48LetPub · 2026-09-13

h-index

129OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

i10-index

1,920OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

2-year mean citedness

3.84OpenAlex · 2026-10-01

Self-citation rate

2.4%LetPub · 2026-09-13

Share of gold OA articles

52.45%LetPub · 2026-09-13

Volume

Articles per year

132LetPub · 2026-09-13

Articles per year (publisher)

2,025Publisher website · 2026-09-29

Downloads per year (publisher) 2025

1,200,000Publisher 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 6 monthsLetPub · 2026-09-13

Average acceptance (community reports)

Fairly easyLetPub · 2026-09-13

Submission to first decision

8 daysPublisher website · 2026-09-29

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.

A hybrid journal charges the APC only when the author chooses open access; publishing under the subscription model is usually free.

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

Springer Berlin Heidelberg

Country or region

GERMANY

Language

English

Frequency

Quarterly

Founded

1999

ISSN

1436-3798

Electronic ISSN

1436-378X

Official links

• Journal homepage ↗OpenAlex
• Submission system ↗Publisher website
• Author guidelines ↗LetPub
• Special issues ↗Publisher website