Journal rankings · indicator year 2021
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Subfield ranking · 2021
Water Science and Technology journal rankings 2021
101 ranked journals · Subfield in Environmental Science
Water Science and Technology has 101 ranked journals in 2021. The median journal has an OJR of 0.68, below the world average of 1.00, up 0.02 on 2020; Q1 starts at OJR 1.21. The top three are npj Clean Water, Hydrology and earth system sciences, and HydroResearch.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2021. Journal access status and listed APC: source snapshot September 23, 2026.
Journals whose main subfield sits in this category and that published at least 30 citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) in 2018–2020, the window the 2021 score is computed on.
The OpenJournalRank Indicator (OJR) is a free, publicly available metric of a journal’s field-normalized citation impact, computed from open OpenAlex citation data. It compares citations to a journal’s papers from the previous three years with the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and values can be compared across fields. It is computed with the NCI3 method.
The middle OJR among ranked journals in this category: half score higher, half lower. 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type.
The dot is this category, the solid tick is the median of all ranked journals and the dashed line is the world average.
Share of ranked journals in this category that are fully open access, so every paper is free to read. Hybrid journals, which sell subscriptions and open single papers for a fee, are not counted.
Median list price of the article processing charge, in US dollars, among ranked journals in this category that list a price above zero. Journals with a listed APC of $0 and journals with no known price are left out of this median. The At a glance table below gives a second median that includes the $0 prices.
Subfields of Environmental Science (11)
101 ranked journals
Filters
Rank is the position by OJR within the list on screen; 1 is the highest. | OJR is field-normalized 3-year citation impact: 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so values compare across fields. The badge is the journal’s quartile in this list. | Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is not field-normalized, so compare it only between journals of the same field. ▲ or ▼ is the change from 2020. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2018–2020, the window the 2021 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2018–2020 papers that are free to read in any open-access form. The green OA tag next to a title marks a fully open-access journal. | List price of the article processing charge in US dollars. “$0 listed” means the listed price is zero; a dash means no price is listed. | The line is the journal’s OJR from 2012 to 2021. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1npj Clean WaterOANature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 4.04Q1 | 15.84 3.52 up from 2020 | 88 | 100% | $3,890 | ||
2Hydrology and earth system sciencesOACopernicus Publications · Germany | 2.56Q1 | 9.87 3.10 up from 2020 | 961 | 100% | $1,725 | ||
3HydroResearchOAElsevier BV · Netherlands | 2.20Q1 | 7.32 1.47 up from 2020 | 37 | 100% | $0 listed | ||
4Water Resources ResearchOAWiley · United States | 2.09Q1 | 7.65 1.35 up from 2020 | 1,900 | 52% | $3,000 | ||
5DesalinationElsevier BV · Netherlands | 2.00Q1 | 9.77 0.03 down from 2020 | 1,104 | 23% | $4,580 | ||
6Journal of Membrane ScienceElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.98Q1 | 9.28 0.40 up from 2020 | 2,870 | 24% | $4,890 | ||
7Water Resources and IndustryOAElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.96Q1 | 5.52 1.24 down from 2020 | 45 | 100% | $3,613 | ||
8ResourcesOAMultidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute · Switzerland | 1.95Q1 | 5.31 0.43 up from 2020 | 413 | 100% | $1,930 | ||
9Separation and Purification ReviewsTaylor & Francis · United States | 1.88Q1 | 6.58 0.94 up from 2020 | 56 | 8% | — | ||
10Applied Water ScienceOASpringer Nature · Germany | 1.87Q1 | 7.00 1.88 up from 2020 | 679 | 100% | $2,490 | ||
11Case Studies in Chemical and Environmental EngineeringOAElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 1.87Q1 | 10.01 8.01 up from 2020 | 75 | 100% | $760 | ||
12ACS ES&T EngineeringAmerican Chemical Society · United States | 1.86Q1 | 7.21no 2020 value | 38 | 23% | $4,500 | — | |
13Journal of Hydrology XOAElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.84Q1 | 5.77 0.45 up from 2020 | 60 | 100% | $2,300 | ||
14Journal of Hydrology Regional StudiesOAElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.79Q1 | 6.73 1.22 up from 2020 | 257 | 100% | $2,600 | ||
15Separation and Purification TechnologyElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.78Q1 | 8.01 0.40 up from 2020 | 3,646 | 12% | $4,060 | ||
16Water-Energy NexusOAElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.70Q1 | 6.93 0.44 down from 2020 | 41 | 100% | $900 | ||
17Sustainable Environment ResearchOABioMed Central · China | 1.69Q1 | 5.62 0.18 down from 2020 | 116 | 100% | $1,990 | ||
18Journal of environmental chemical engineeringElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.64Q1 | 7.76 1.30 up from 2020 | 2,870 | 15% | $3,350 | ||
19Journal of Water Process EngineeringElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.59Q1 | 7.26 0.26 up from 2020 | 1,328 | 19% | $3,350 | ||
20Frontiers in WaterOAFrontiers Media · Switzerland | 1.54Q1 | 5.19 1.94 up from 2020 | 68 | 100% | $1,418 | ||
21Hydrological Sciences JournalTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 1.48Q1 | 5.60 1.43 up from 2020 | 505 | 22% | — | ||
22Environmental Nanotechnology Monitoring & ManagementElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.43Q1 | 6.40 0.90 up from 2020 | 292 | 9% | $3,650 | ||
23Adsorption Science & TechnologyOASAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 1.34Q1 | 4.37 0.03 up from 2020 | 119 | 100% | $1,500 | ||
24Air Soil and Water ResearchOASAGE Publishing · United States | 1.25Q1 | 5.12 1.67 up from 2020 | 69 | 100% | $2,650 | ||
25Hydrological ProcessesWiley · United Kingdom | 1.23Q1 | 4.77 1.14 up from 2020 | 939 | 35% | $5,230 | ||
26Aquacultural EngineeringElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 1.21Q1 | 3.88 0.09 up from 2020 | 172 | 29% | $3,500 | ||
27WaterOAMultidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute · Switzerland | 1.18Q2 | 4.38 0.55 up from 2020 | 8,122 | 100% | $3,137 | ||
28Minerals EngineeringElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 1.18Q2 | 5.11 0.23 up from 2020 | 1,196 | 16% | $4,220 | ||
29Environmental Science Water Research & TechnologyRoyal Society of Chemistry · United Kingdom | 1.16Q2 | 5.28 0.78 up from 2020 | 645 | 20% | — | ||
30World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2019Publisher not listed | 1.14Q2 | 0.55 0.06 down from 2020 | 197 | — | — | ||
31MembranesOAMultidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute · Switzerland | 1.14Q2 | 5.11 0.06 up from 2020 | 773 | 100% | $2,654 | ||
32World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2018Publisher not listed | 1.08Q2 | —no 2020 value | 199 | — | — | ||
33HydrologyOAMultidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute · Switzerland | 1.02Q2 | 3.99 1.13 up from 2020 | 255 | 100% | $2,172 | ||
34SeparationsOAMultidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute · Switzerland | 0.98Q2 | 3.64 0.04 up from 2020 | 188 | 100% | $3,137 | ||
35Water ScienceOATaylor & Francis · Egypt | 0.97Q2 | 2.77 0.57 down from 2020 | 61 | 100% | — | ||
36International Journal of Environmental Science and TechnologySpringer Science+Business Media · Iran | 0.96Q2 | 3.80 0.65 up from 2020 | 1,360 | 12% | $3,490 | ||
37ACS ES&T WaterAmerican Chemical Society · United States | 0.95Q2 | 3.79no 2020 value | 61 | 21% | $4,500 | — | |
38Euro-Mediterranean Journal for Environmental IntegrationSpringer Science+Business Media · Switzerland | 0.93Q2 | 2.35 0.40 up from 2020 | 152 | 25% | $2,290 | ||
39Environmental ProcessesSpringer Science+Business Media · Switzerland | 0.92Q2 | 3.33 1.05 up from 2020 | 197 | 12% | $2,390 | ||
40Journal of Water Reuse and DesalinationOAIWA Publishing · United Kingdom | 0.91Q2 | 3.21 0.01 down from 2020 | 93 | 100% | $2,150 | ||
41Water Conservation Science and EngineeringSpringer Science+Business Media · Singapore | 0.84Q2 | 2.53 0.23 down from 2020 | 57 | 12% | $3,290 | ||
42JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources AssociationWiley · United States | 0.83Q2 | 2.22 1.01 down from 2020 | 263 | 36% | $3,200 | ||
43Environmental Engineering ResearchOAKorean Society of Environmental Engineering · South Korea | 0.83Q2 | 3.19 0.19 up from 2020 | 362 | 100% | — | ||
44International Journal of Environmental ResearchSpringer Science+Business Media · Iran | 0.82Q2 | 3.47 0.57 up from 2020 | 233 | 13% | $3,790 | ||
45International Journal of Energy and Water ResourcesSpringer Science+Business Media · Iran | 0.81Q2 | 2.88 0.70 up from 2020 | 93 | 8% | $3,190 | ||
46International Journal of River Basin ManagementTaylor & Francis | 0.78Q2 | 2.68 0.66 up from 2020 | 162 | 17% | — | ||
47Journal of Chemical Technology & BiotechnologyWiley · United Kingdom | 0.77Q2 | 3.54 0.39 up from 2020 | 1,045 | 18% | $4,100 | ||
48Separation Science and TechnologyTaylor & Francis · United States | 0.77Q2 | 2.86 0.53 up from 2020 | 956 | 6% | — | ||
49Sustainable Water Resources ManagementSpringer Science+Business Media · Switzerland | 0.73Q2 | 2.51 0.74 up from 2020 | 265 | 14% | $3,190 | ||
50Canadian Water Resources Journal / Revue canadienne des ressources hydriquesTaylor & Francis · Canada | 0.70Q2 | 2.25 0.46 up from 2020 | 74 | 14% | — |
Subfields of Environmental Science, with Water Science and Technology highlighted.
- Ecology279
- Global and Planetary Change221
- Water Science and Technology101
- Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis93
- Pollution58
- Nature and Landscape Conservation57
- Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law52
- Environmental Engineering47
- Waste Management and Disposal22
- Environmental Chemistry8
- Ecological Modeling7
Journals
Citations made in 2021. Corpus-wide, 87.7% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
32 additional Water Science and Technology journals with metrics are unranked under this release’s eligibility rules: a journal needs at least 30 citable documents in 2018–2020, at least 80% of them with a subfield, and a positive world-average expectation. Ranks are within the whole category; filters hide rows without re-ranking. OJR excludes self-citations.
At a glance
Indicator year: 2021. Publication window: 2018–2020. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 101
- Window papers (baseline)
- 79,702 +16.9% from indicator year 2018
- Median OJR
- 0.677 +18.7% from indicator year 2018
- Rising journals (2025)
- 6
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2018–2020 in all journals of the world-average baseline, including non-core journals, counted by each paper’s own subfield. They are not the papers of the ranked journals alone.
| Measure | Year series | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ranked journals | 34 | 36 | 38 | 39 | 41 | 43 | 46 | 47 | 49 | 52 | 58 | 66 | 67 | 72 | 82 | 87 | 95 | 101 | 103 | 97 | 101 | 101 | 103 | 104 | 103 | 103 | |
| Window papers (baseline) | 14,781 | 17,791 | 20,498 | 23,486 | 25,734 | 28,549 | 32,247 | 36,403 | 40,771 | 44,936 | 50,005 | 54,989 | 59,878 | 63,966 | 68,372 | 71,167 | 71,057 | 68,448 | 68,167 | 70,866 | 75,349 | 79,702 | 82,811 | 85,893 | 88,063 | 92,086 | |
| Median OJR | 0.596 | 0.603 | 0.650 | 0.663 | 0.62 | 0.651 | 0.684 | 0.514 | 0.50 | 0.45 | 0.47 | 0.512 | 0.645 | 0.590 | 0.53 | 0.54 | 0.61 | 0.589 | 0.57 | 0.597 | 0.656 | 0.677 | 0.654 | 0.664 | 0.70 | 0.75 |
How to read these rankings
- OJR, the OpenJournalRank Indicator
- A field-normalized 3-year citation impact, computed from OpenAlex with the NCI3 method. It divides the citations a journal’s papers received by the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and 2.00 means twice as many citations as expected. Because it is normalized, it can be compared across fields. Read the methodology
- Quartiles
- Q1 to Q4 split the ranked journals of the list you are viewing into four equal groups by OJR. A journal’s quartile depends on the list: the same journal can be Q1 in its subfield and Q2 among all journals.
- Impact factor (2-year)
- Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is easy to compare with familiar impact factors but is not field-normalized, so compare it only within a field. It is not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. Why it differs from the Journal Impact Factor
- Rank ranges
- Each rank in the latest year carries a likely range from 1,000 resamples of the journal’s papers. Where two journals’ ranges overlap, the data cannot tell them apart, so treat neighbouring ranks as ties.