Editorial 2019

Welcome to Volume 52 of the Quarterly Journal of EngineeringGeology and Hydrogeology (QJEGH). At the end of my first year asChief Scientific Editor (Fig. 1), I am pleased, and of course relieved,that the journal continues to flourish beyond its golden anniversary.This is reflected in the number of submissions, international reach,high quality of the accepted papers, an active editorial board andstrong links with the specialist groups.

Authors submitting papers to QJEGH in 2017 and 2018 camefrom 50 countries, which demonstrates the international reach ofthe journal. The majority are from the UK, Europe and Asia, withvery few papers from Africa and Latin America. Despite somedifficulties with the standard of English, this diversity is graduallyworking through into published papers, although UK authorsremain the largest group, followed by those from China, Italy, Iranand Netherlands.

The 2018 submissions continued at an impressive rate, reaching atotal of 214. However, the overall rejection rate remains high at72%, the same as 2017. Although this seems high, a much higherproportion of thematic sets and reviews are accepted, thus the realrejection rate of unsolicited papers is even higher. At the beginningon 2018, one of my optimistic aims as the new editor was to reducethe time taken for reviews. So far this has met with limited success,with a median time of 200–250 days from submission to online

publication. The statistics compiled by the publishing house staffshow a long tail in the publication times, when papers undergoseveral rounds of review and revision. To remedy these excessivetimes, the editorial board has decided that papers should notnormally go beyond a second revision, unless the further editsrequired are minimal. We have also introduced an award forreviewers from the end of 2019, based on the quality of the reviews,time taken, length and number of papers reviewed.

Although the submissions that make it through the review processto publication are of a high quality, QJEGH’s Impact Factor (IF), ameasure of the short-term citation rate of papers published in thejournal, is languishing below 1, at 0.818 for 2017/18, similar to thevalues before 2014. Given the highly applied nature of the QJEGHthis is not surprising, but the target for the coming year is an impactfactor of 1 or above, as well as maintaining the 5 year impact factorat the current value of 1.163. Unfortunately, the short term nature ofthese measures undersells the long running influence of the classicpapers published by QJEGH; the third most downloaded paper in2018 was Prof W.R. Dearman’s 1974 paper on Engineeringgeological mapping for civil engineering practice in the UnitedKingdom. It is fitting that the young author award carries his name.

Key papers for QJEGH are the annual Glossop and Inesonlectures and a continuing series of thematic sets. Although noGlossop or Ineson lectures were published in Volume 51, the 2018Glossop lecture is already in production so we anticipate publishingat least one in 2019. The thematic set of review papers for the 50thanniversary of QJEGH is drawing to a close, along with thematicsets on Ground related risk to transportation infrastructure andMeasurement and monitoring. New thematic sets include theoutputs from the London Basin Forum and the Engineering Group’sannual conference, which was reinstated in 2018, on Keepinglessons alive in engineering geology. Establishing closer links withthe specialist groups should result in publication of ideas presentedat a wider range of technical meetings, including those in theGeological Society’s themed years of Carbon (2019) and Life(2020). To enable more conference presenters, especially thoseworking for consultants and contractors, to publish their work, wehave introduced a new type of article, Case Study, which focus onspecific examples that will advance engineering geology andhydrogeology practice, providing the geological context and lessonslearned. Along with the ever popular Photo Features and TechnicalNotes, this gives opportunities for authors to publish shorter articleswhile maintaining the quality of the research papers.

The Editorial Board of the QJEGH, especially the AssistantScientific Editors working with our Production Editor Helen Floyd-Walker, ensures that the journal meets its objectives, qualitystandard and publication schedule. Less onerous tasks are selectingthe winner of the young author award and the cover photograph foreach volume. With a board of volunteers, all donating their time andexpertise, it is inevitable that many people reach the end of theirterm at the same time. To their credit, a significant proportioncontinue to participate actively far beyond the end of their nominalend date. 2018 was one of the years when many Editorial Boardmembers and the three Assistant Scientific Editors reached the endof their appointment term. This was a somewhat alarming prospectfor a new CSE, because the loss of many experienced, committedFig. 1. Jane Dottridge, Lake Bled, Slovenia.

© 2019 The Author(s). Published by The Geological Society of London. All rights reserved. For permissions: http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/permissions.Publishing disclaimer: www.geolsoc.org.uk/pub_ethics

Editorial Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology

Published online January 25, 2019 https://doi.org/10.1144/qjegh2019-006 | Vol. 52 | 2019 | pp. 1–2

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editors poses a real risk that insight and expertise would be lost tothe journal. On the other hand, it brings opportunities to bring innew and enthusiastic members with fresh ideas and expertise in newareas of growing popularity.

During 2018, the key departures were all three AssistantScientific Editors, Nick Koor, Jamie Standing and Steve Buss.We are delighted to welcome Cherith Moses, Joel Smethurst andJonathan Smith as the new ASEs. All three have started their roleswith skill, enthusiasm and efficiency, recruiting new editorial boardmembers with a wide range of expertise. The complete list ofeditorial board departures and appointments is too long to reproducehere but the Society, the Publishing House and their colleagues onthe Editorial Board thank all of them. It is my privilege and pleasureto formally thank those who are leaving for all their efforts in recentyears and to record my appreciation to everyone who has taken on anew challenge.

Each year, the editorial board selects the winner of the annualProfessor William R Dearman QJEGH Young Author of the YearAward from the authors of QJEGH papers published in the year ofthe award who were aged under 35 years at the time of submission.The winner joins the QJEGH Editorial Board for a year, as well asreceiving two years’ free Fellowship of the Geological Society ofLondon and a Geological Society EGSP or SP. I hope that thisaward adds to the incentives to early careers geologists to submittheir papers to QJEGH, and encourage the finalists in the EarlyCareer Geologist of the year competition to write up their work too.

It is my great pleasure to announce that the Professor William RDearman QJEGH Young Author of the Year for 2018 is NiladriBhattacharjee, as the first author on the paper on Geological andgeotechnical studies around Kaswati dam, Kachchh, India:implications on tectonic stability, rock mass property and waterretention capacity (Bhattacharjee & Mohanty 2018). The compe-tition had a true international flavour with eight entries from China,India, Korea and Northern Ireland, and judging was difficult. As the

results were close, I would also like to congratulate the runner up,Pengpeng Ni for his paper on Design optimization of room andpillar mines: a case study of the Xianglushan tungsten mine (Zhang& Ni 2018).

Looking forwards to 2019 and beyond, I aim optimistically toreduce the time from submission of papers to their initial publicationas on-line first, increase the impact factor and enable the journal toprepare for the challenges of the rapid developments in on-linepublishing and the increasing requirements for open access. Theinfluence of open access is reflected in the top 5 downloaded anddiscussed papers in 2018 which all have open access, mostly goldfor the top 5 downloaded and green for the top 5 discussed, but withthe top 10 covering the entire range of QJEGH’s subject areas.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the reviewers,editorial board members and the production editor for providingtheir time and expertise for the journal, and the authors writing highquality papers which give the journal its interesting and influentialcontent.

ReferencesBhattacharjee, N. & Mohanty, S.P. 2018. Geological and geotechnical studies

around Kaswati dam, Kachchh, India: implications on tectonic stability, rockmass property and water retention capacity. Quarterly Journal of EngineeringGeology and Hydrogeology, 51, 338–351, https://doi.org/10.1144/qjegh2017-091

Dearman, W.R. & Fookes, P.G. 1974. Engineering geological mapping for civilengineering practice in the United Kingdom. Quarterly Journal ofEngineering Geology and Hydrogeology, 7, 223–256, https://doi.org/10.1144/GSL.QJEG.1974.007.03.01

Zhang,Y.&Ni, P. 2018.Design optimization of room and pillar mines: a case studyof the Xianglushan tungsten mine. Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geologyand Hydrogeology, 51, 338–351, https://doi.org/10.1144/qjegh2017-037

Jane DottridgeMott MacDonaldJane.Dottridge@mottmac.com

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