IMWA - International Mine Water Association

Guidelines for Authors

Scope

This journal has an international audience, made up of both researchers and practitioners. We welcome original contributions that address either technical questions or practical issues related to the evaluation, prediction, prevention, or control of water problems at mining operations or their environmental impacts. The journal and its audience are interdisciplinary and application-oriented. Manuscripts should convey new information and be of potential interest to researchers as well as practitioners in this field. Laboratory and field experiments, modeling efforts, studies of relevant field sites, technical evaluations of new technology, and engineering applications are all appropriate. However, if your manuscript is purely academic in nature (not soon likely to result in a useful approach or technology) or is only likely to interest readers from a limited region, you may be better served by submitting it somewhere else. If you are uncertain, feel free to e-mail a first draft to the editor at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it before taking the time to correctly format it.

There are no page charges, except for advertisements, and no charge for the use of color. Papers may be submitted in one of three formats: Generally, researchers will prefer to submit manuscripts as “Technical Articles” that will be edited and peer reviewed; authors of such manuscripts will receive the reviewers’ comments and be given the opportunity to address them before a final decision is made regarding publication. Alternatively, contributors can submit (generally) shorter manuscripts to quickly convey information to others in the field. Limited case studies, field trials, or new developments by those working in the mining industry and details of new methods, techniques, or technology will be appropriate for this format. These manuscripts will be referred to as “Technical Communications”, and, unless the authors wish to have it peer reviewed, it will be edited but not peer reviewed; the editors alone will decide if the manuscripts are appropriate for publication in this journal. This format should provide a forum for practitioners and others in the field to let people know of their successes and failures, and for researchers to share their results quickly or to publish studies that are not as comprehensive as might be expected in a peer reviewed text. Technical Communications are not intended to serve as advertisements and authors who step over this boundary will be asked to modify their manuscript or pay the appropriate page charges and label their text as an advertisement. Finally, we publish what we call “IMWA insights”, where you are free to report and describe whatever you think might be of interest to our readers – conference reports, critical comments, or an interesting site visit you want to share with your audience. IMWA Insights are edited but not peer reviewed.

We also welcome informed and relevant Reviews, such as the review of passive treatment of mine water by Skousen et al. (2017) in Mine Water Environ 36(1): 133–153, as well as informed and relevant technical opinion pieces or book reviews (published as “IMWA Insights”). A good example of one of these is: McCullough CD (2016) Mine Water Research: Enhancing Mining Industry and Academic Collaboration. Mine Water Environ 35(1): 113–118.

Table 1 Submission Categories for “Mine Water and the Environment”

Submission of Manuscripts

Authors are encouraged but not required to join IMWA. Considering that membership includes a subscription to the journal, the cost of membership is remarkably low, and we believe authors benefit by becoming members. For more information on membership, please visit IMWA's web page.

It is the submitting author’s responsibility to ensure that all other authors have approved the manuscript before submission. This includes the responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – at the institute where the work has been carried out. Generally, papers submitted should not have been published or have been submitted for publication elsewhere, but exceptions will be made for published papers that are generally unavailable to most of the readers of this journal. Examples would include papers presented at conferences that only distribute the proceedings to attendees, papers published in a language other than English, or papers published in a generally unrelated field. However, in such cases, then you must retain the copyright (perhaps from the publishing journal) and thus have the legal right to republish it in “Mine Water and the Environment” and should properly cite the previous publication.

Authors are encouraged to have their colleagues review their paper before it is submitted to the journal. Names and e-mail addresses of appropriate reviewers who have not already seen a draft of the paper should be provided during the upload process.

Mine Water and the Environment manuscripts must be uploaded to Springer’s Editorial Manager web site at www.MWEN.info/em, in Microsoft Word format. Please make sure that you complete the submission process, which will convert the manuscript to a PDF file with a link to the Word format file. Appropriate format for figures is discussed near the end of this document, but if you wish, you can delay properly formatting the figures until the paper is ready for final editing.

You can also submit supplementary electronic material in any format you wish, and they can be referred to in the document as a supplemental file and will accompany the on-line version of the manuscript.

Statement of Novelty

When submitting a manuscript, you will be asked to provide a Statement of Novelty. A Statement of Novelty is required for Technical Articles, Review Papers, and Technical Communications that are not case studies. Case Studies, and IMWA Insights do not require a Statement of Novelty.

The intent of such a Statement is to convince the editors and reviewers that the manuscript is relevant and novel with respect to the existing literature (including the author’s own published work) and state of the art. We include the author’s own published work because we want to avoid adding multiple versions of the same work to the literature. These statements will be used to quickly screen the more relevant and interesting papers from the less meaningful ones. The Statement of Novelty should be concise (125 words or less) and should not repeat what is already in the abstract or the introduction.

Here are two examples of a Statement of Novelty based on papers that “Mine Water and the Environment” has published:

1. Passive treatment wetlands are conventionally designed for contaminant removal; enhanced biodiversity is ancillary. We developed a new approach that incorporates enhanced biodiversity as an explicit objective, based on the ecological requirements of key species. We believe that the design of mine water treatment wetlands larger than 5–10 ha should incorporate ecological considerations and strive to integrate them in the surrounding landscape. This concept is illustrated through the design of a treatment wetland at a mine site in Chile, where aspects of treatment, biodiversity, and water management were developed separately, and then integrated into a holistic design.
2. Water conservation is extremely important in northern China where a confined limestone aquifer generally must be depressurized to prevent water inrushes. In the past, this extracted water would largely have been wasted. Instead, we determined the amount of water that would have to be extracted to allow safe mining based on drawdown tests at artesian wells. Arrangements were then made between the coal mine and a nearby industrial consumer who would use the water. In the process, we determined that permeable faults, which normally would have been considered dangerous and grouted, could potentially be used to improve water production for the consumer. This approach incorporates beneficial use of mine water into the design and operating process.

Legal Requirements

The authors guarantee that the manuscript will not be and has not been published elsewhere in any language without the consent of the copyright holders, that the rights of third parties will not be violated, and that the publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.

Authors wishing to include figures or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright holders and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors. So, please make sure that you have not committed plagiarism, either by accident or through ignorance. Simply citing a source does not give an author permission to copy published material. It must be rewritten, unless quotation marks surround the copied text, even if it is the author’s own text. The “Springer Nature” guidelines are these: First, they require written permission from the original publisher to reuse any exact copy, such as a table or figure. Second, any material that is being reused should cite the previous publication, along with the phrase, “published with permission from …” followed by the citation. If a table or figure has been modified (e.g. updated), then written permission is not required but the original source should still be cited, along with the phrase, “modified from …” and then the citation.

Note, if you copy and paste material from your own previous publication, without rewriting the text, that is self-plagiarism, and is also not allowed. We also encourage you to read general publishing ethics guideline as outlined here, which is what we base our practices on. We typically use plagiarism-detecting software to detect such problems and encourage you to do the same. We do, however, grant leeway to thesis documents, since many universities now encourage their graduate students to incorporate manuscripts of papers as chapters in their thesis. However, if you do so, be sure to properly cite the thesis and include it in the reference list.

For the paper to be published by Springer, you must complete and return the “Copyright Transfer Statement,” which Springer will provide at about the same time as the electronic proof version of the manuscript. Along with that, you will be given the opportunity to purchase offprints of your paper or Open Access privileges for your paper. Please review the electronic proof copy of the accepted manuscript very carefully. Do not make trivial changes, but do look for errors that you might have missed earlier, such as errors in the math or in the chemical equations. Your paper will not be published until Springer receives both your copyright transfer statement and either your approval of the electronic proof copy or a marked-up version. An e-copy of the paper will be supplied to the communicating author.

Format of the Journal

Authors are strongly encouraged to follow the instructions provided below and in the FAQ. All papers must be submitted in English, using any standard variety of spellings (e.g. American, British, South African), but you must be consistent in the version of English that you are using. Microsoft Word allows you to select the version of English you wish to use and will denote spellings that are not in accordance with that version. All papers, except for those submitted as Technical Communications or IMWA insights, will be peer reviewed, and papers that are poorly organized or that are written in poor English will generally not fare well. Authors for whom English is not their primary language should recruit the assistance of a native English speaker or use a commercial translation service, such as the one that Springer offers. Please look at papers that have been published in this journal for examples on how best to organize your paper.

Generally, the papers will be sent out to suitable reviewers without revision, so please submit them ready for peer review. The editors may choose to modify the text to improve grammar, adjust style, reduce verbiage, and maintain uniform standards before sending the paper out for peer review, but will not make such changes without the approval of the submitting author. Once the authors have improved the document by addressing the reviewers’ or associate editor’s concerns, the figures have all been properly formatted for publication, and the reviewers are satisfied, the papers will be edited by the Editor-in-Chief to remove text that is too introductory for our readers, or otherwise unnecessary (e.g. redundant material). At the same time, the English will be polished, and the formatting of the text will be revised, getting the paper ready for publication. At that point, the paper will be sent back to you once more so that you can review the edited version, correct any errors that you find, and address any comments placed in the margins as suggestions or required changes.

The length of the papers will vary, depending on what is needed to describe and interpret the work clearly and concisely. In general, any portion of your paper that is describing work that was done and the results that you obtained should be written concisely in the past tense. Also, papers should generally not exceed 20 typed pages (≈ 5000 words). Use the Times New Roman or Cambria 11-point font. Italics and boldface fonts may be used, if desired, but please avoid underlining and remove all hyperlinks in your text.

Use SI units! Imperial units (such as feet, inch, gallons) can be included, if desired, but must follow the equivalent SI units and must be provided in parentheses. Do not write the long name of the SI units in addition to the appropriate short version. Furthermore, indicate decimal points with periods rather than commas. Also, note that the correct SI symbol for liters is the capital letter L, not small letter l or small script ℓ.

Use one column text format and only use footnotes to explain symbols in tables. It would also be nice if you format your document on A4 paper, ideally with 1.8 cm margins on the top, left, and right side and 2 cm at the bottom. Avoid empty lines between paragraphs and do not use spaces or tabs to format your paper; instead, use the paragraph or tab formatting tool of your text processor.

Paper titles should be concise and informative: ideally, 12 words or less. Affiliations, full addresses and ORCID must be provided for all authors. In addition, the e-mail address, and telephone number of the communicating author should be provided. Each paper should be provided with a results-oriented abstract of no more than 250 words.

Include four to six key words, ideally contained in the GeoRef Thesaurus, and the geographical region, if relevant. Do not repeat words that are in your manuscript’s title, as those are already key words.

Generally, two levels of headings are used. Main headings are left justified and in bold type and are separated from the text above and below by a 12-point spacing. The heading is not underlined and must not be written in capital letters. No heading numbering system is used. Sub-headings are similar except that they are not in bold type and there is no space below it. All headings are in “Title Case”, that is, with a capital letter at the start of each word except for articles, prepositions, and conjunctions. If a third level of heading is required, it should be italicized, with only the initial letter of the first word and proper nouns capitalized. This entire section of the website has been prepared using the format that you should use.

The publisher will convert the manuscript into the journal’s two-column format after all the revisions have been made. To facilitate this, figures and tables should be sized to fit within an 8.4 cm (3.31 inch) column whenever possible. Figures and tables that cannot fit within a single column should not exceed the width of the page, 17.4 cm (6.85 inch), in portrait, not landscape, mode. The maximum length is the length of a page, 22.9 cm (9.02 inch).

Details about properly formatting figures and tables are provided later, but in general, figures and their captions can be included in the paper during peer review, but must be submitted separately from the text file when the paper is being finalized. So, if you want to avoid double work, just provide them separately, as discussed below in the section labelled Tables and Figures. Before you submit your manuscript, make sure that all internal numbering, hyperlinks, and internal references are converted to plain text. In addition, don’t use your word processor’s auto numbering tool for the captions, or for the sections of the documents.

Introductions should be written with the understanding that the readers of this journal are already very familiar with the basic aspects of mine hydrology, mine water treatment (both active and passive), and how acid drainage forms. You should not explain the oxidation of pyrite and formation of acidity in your paper’s introduction – we all know how that process works. If your paper addresses certain aspects of the field and you feel that it is important to briefly address the basics, do so in one sentence, with a couple of citations to the literature. For example: “It is commonly accepted that acid rock generation is caused by the oxidation of pyrite (Singer and Stumm 1970; Stumm and Morgan 1996). However, recently, we …”

Our editors will very likely delete sections explaining concepts that 99% of our readers already know. They will also delete redundant material. We do this to make the papers more readable and interesting and to create space in the journal for more papers. Save yourself and the editors unnecessary effort and submit the papers without such unnecessary text.

Also, do not use the term “heavy metals.” Like many journals, we no longer use the term because it means different things to different readers, and so must be redefined each time it is used. For example, many would consider arsenic to be a heavy metal, when in reality it is not really a metal at all – it is a metalloid or semimetal. For many, it implies toxicity, while to others, it does not. In many instances, you can just use the word “metals”; alternatively, “contaminants” or “potentially toxic elements” might be good general substitutes. More details in our FAQ.

Equations

Equations are often difficult to reproduce in text, due to the variety of software used to create them. Yet, you should include them in the text using the equation editor or MathType. Equations should be left formatted, and if a series of equations are provided, sequentially number them on the right-hand side of the page. Again, do not use an auto-numbering tool.

The editors will likely not be able to reformat your equations, so please make them as compatible as possible to the rest of the text, using Times New Roman or Cambria font. Also, when you are defining the terms in the text used in the equations, please use normal font (e.g. italic letters) or insert the appropriate Unicode symbols available in Microsoft Word.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter.

Literature Citations in the Text

Cite references in the text by name and year in parentheses and when multiple sources are being cited, list them in alphabetical order (as in the reference section). Also, do not place a comma between the author’s name and the year or between et al. and the year. References having three or more authors are cited using et al. Note that et al. is an abbreviation and therefore requires a period, and that we do not italicize commonly used foreign language words, such as et al. References by the same author(s) in the same year should be distinguished by letters (e.g. Smith 1990a or 1990a, b). Personal communications should be cited in the text but not listed in the reference section. Some examples:

This is contradicted by May et al. (2005), assuming the beginning of the Calama Formation during the lower Eocene.

The overall metal concentrations have dramatically decreased in stream sediments below Pecos village, mostly due to dilution of sediment downstream (Carey et al. 2001; McLemore et al. 1995a, b, 2001).

Consequently, As sorption has been widely studied in relation to pH, background electrolyte, and oxidation state (arsenate vs. arsenite) as major experimental variables (e.g. Anderson et al. 1976; Goldberg 1986; Pierce and Moore 1982; Raven et al. 1998).

X-ray diffraction analyses indicate that calcite is the only carbonate present (R. Smith, PaGS, personal communication, 1996).

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgment of people, grants, and funding sources should be placed in a separate section before the reference list. The names of funding organizations should be written in full.

References

The list of references should only include work that has been cited in the text, and generally consists of material that has been published or accepted for publication, though unpublished reports that are publicly available can be included, as discussed below. Personal communications should only be mentioned in the text. Do not number the references and do not use footnotes or endnotes as a substitute for a reference list.

Reference list entries should be alphabetized by the last names of the first author of each work. Order multi-author publications of the same first author alphabetically with respect to second, third, … author. Publications of the same author(s) must be ordered chronologically.

List all authors and editors; hence, do not use et al. in the reference section. If a document has been published electronically, but has not yet appeared in print, provide the DOI (digital object identifier) whenever possible. Please make sure that journals’ titles are correctly abbreviated, as described on the ISSN web page or the Web of Science list.

Paper titles should be listed in lower case, except for the first word of the title and proper nouns, such as the name of a city or a river. If a publication was published in a language other than English, please translate the title of the paper into English and then list the language in brackets after the reference, such as: [in Chinese]. However, the name of the conference or book can be printed in its original language if it is difficult to translate. Use of generally understood abbreviations is encouraged and periods may be omitted if the meaning is clear without them (e.g. Symp, Proc, Conf, Univ, Vol, pp).

Articles in conference proceedings or chapters in books should basically be treated like journal papers, but instead of the abbreviated name of a journal, book titles should be listed in full, with the appropriate use of capital letters. The names of conferences can be shortened a little – for example, there is no reason to include the year of the conference since it is listed just after the authors, unless they differ. However, the location where a conference and the dates of the conference can be eliminated.

Also, list the publisher of books and the city where they were published, since sometimes page numbers differ in versions published in different locations. Many reports prepared by consulting companies or local or regional authorities have never been published. This has to be indicated clearly by adding “(unpublished)”. However, such references should be avoided as far as possible and included only if they are publicly available on request and provide essential information not contained in published sources. Online references (websites) are also discouraged, since they may change or be taken down over time, but sometimes they are the only appropriate option. If you need to list an online source, be sure to include the date that you accessed it.

For authors using EndNote, we provide an output style that supports the formatting of in-text citations and the reference list.

Examples

Journal articles

Banks D, Younger PL, Arnesen RT, Iversen ER, Banks S (1997) Mine water geochemistry: the good, the bad, the ugly. Environ Geol 32(3):157–174

Brown MC, Wigley TC, Ford, DC (1969) Water budget studies in karst aquifers. J Hydrology 9:113–116. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1694(69)90018-3

Gammons CH, Mulholland TP, Frandsen AK (2000) A comparison of filtered vs. unfiltered metal concentrations in treatment wetlands. Mine Water Environ 19(2):111-123. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02687259

Ivanov VV (2012) Hydrographic characteristics and pollution level of Kuban River. Ecol Bull N Caucuses 8: 80–84 [in Russian]

Zou Q, Lin B (2018) Fluid-solid coupling characteristics of gas-bearing coal subject to hydraulic slotting: an experimental investigation. Energ Fuel. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.energyfuels.7b02358

Papers in Books and Conference Proceedings

Adams DJ, Peoples M, Opara A (2012) A New Electro-Biochemical Reactor for Treatment of Wastewater. In: Drelich J, Hwang J-Y, Adams J, Nagaraj DR, Sun X, Xu Z (eds) Water in Mineral Processing. SME, Littleton, p 143–154

Blowes DW, Ptacek CJ, Jambor JL, Weisener CG, Paktunc D, Gould WD, Johnson DB (2014) The Geochemistry of Acid Mine Drainage. In: Turekian HD, Holland KK (eds) Treatise on Geochemistry. 2nd edn. Elsevier, Oxford, p 131–190

Caruccio FT, Geidel G (1984) Induced alkaline recharge zones to mitigate acidic seeps. In: Groves DH, DeVere RW (eds) Proc, Symp of Surface Mining, Hydrology, Sedimentology and Reclamation. Univ of Kentucky, p 27–36

Schultze M, Friese K, Sanchez J, Santofimia E, Lopez E (2008) The Aznalcollar pit lake – water quality and options of remediation. In: Lopez-Geta JA, Loredo Perez J, Fernandez Ruiz L, Pernia Llera JM (eds) Investigacion y de los recurso del subsuelo. Libro homenaje al Profesor Fernando Pendas Fernandez. Publicaciones del Instituto Geologica y Minero de Espana, Serie: Hidrogeologia y Aguas Subterraneas no 27, Instituto Geologico y Minero de Espana, Madrid, p 853–863

Books

Wolkersdorfer C (2008) Water Management at Abandoned Flooded Underground Mines – Fundamentals, Tracer Tests, Modelling, Water Treatment. Springer, Heidelberg

Theses and dissertations

Yu BH (2009) Study on the hazard-formation mechanism of key strata compound breaking mining under unconsolidated confined aquifer with high water pressure. PhD Diss, China Univ of Mining and Technology [in Chinese]

Yu XG (2008) Forecast of floor water bursting based on information fusion, MSc thesis, Shandong Univ Science and Tech [in Chinese]

Reports

Evans L, Cronin D, Doupé RG, Hunt D, Lymbery AJ, McCullough CD, Tsvetnenko Y (2005) Potential of pit lakes as a positive post-mining option – examples, issues and opportunities. Report to Rio Tinto Inc, Centre for Sustainable Mine Lakes, Perth, Western Australia (unpublished)

Teck Resources (2010) Sustainability Report. Teck Resources, Vancouver, Canada. www.teck.com/responsibility/approach-to-responsibility/sustainability-report/report-archive Accessed 2011-07-18

Laws, related rules, and guidelines

DMP/EPA (2011) Guidelines for preparing mine closure plans. Western Australian Dept of Mines and Petroleum (DMP), Environmental Protection Authority of Western Australia (EPA), Perth. www.dmp.wa.gov.au/Environment/Guidelines-and-guidance-19754.aspx Accessed 2012-05-07

Government of Alberta (1992) Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act (Chapter E-13.3). Queen’s Printer, Government of Alberta, Edmonton

Government of Alberta (1993) Conservation and Reclamation Regulation (AR 115/1993). Queen’s Printer, Government of Alberta, Edmonton

Online documents

Cartwright J (2007) Big stars have weather too. IOP Publishing Physics Web. physicsweb.org/articles/news/11/6/16/1 Accessed 2018-03-20

Fintra – Finnish Trade Organization Ltd (2016) Finnish Mining Cluster. In: Finpro, Fintra – Finnish Trade Organization Ltd. de.slideshare.net/FinproRy/finnish-mining-cluster Accessed 2016-07-05

Tables

All tables will be typeset again by the publisher. Therefore, your tables should be provided in Microsoft Word format in a way that allows them to be reformatted as necessary. During the peer review process, tables can be incorporated into the text at the first convenient location after the table is referenced. Yet if you do this, you will be expected to extract them later and provided them in either a separate Microsoft Word file along with the other tables, or in the text after the reference section, allowing them to be easily inserted in an appropriate location during the printing process.

There should be a title above the table and an explanation of any abbreviations used in that table included as table footnotes if they are not explained in the table’s title. Footnotes to the table should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data). As a rule, tables should have only three lines: above and under the title line and at the table’s end. Avoid vertical lines, even on the external sides of the table. Please look at this journal’s previously published papers for examples.

Table 2 Scan and image quality for our journal

Figures

As discussed above, you can provide figures within the Microsoft Word file during the peer review process, but when the paper is being finalized, you will be asked to send us the illustrations as separate files as described below. Therefore, consider preparing them in this manner from the beginning. High resolution images are required. Illustrations made with the graphic tools of your word processor (e.g. MS Graph) cannot be used in a high-quality editorial and printing process. Please name your figure files like that: smith_fig1.eps, smith_fig2.tif, smith_fig3.pdf …

Feel free to use color, as the entire journal is published by Springer in color and so there is no charge to the authors for using colored figures. In fact, we encourage the use of color in figures. Remember though that some readers might copy your paper in black and white or may be color-blind, so be kind to them and use different line forms (e.g. dotted, dashed) as well as colors to distinguish lines on graphs.

Before you provide us with your figure, keep in mind that there are generally two types of figures: vector figures (e.g. for line graphs, scatter diagrams) and raster figures (e.g. photographs or TEM images). You need to take that into consideration when sending us the files for your figures.

When the paper is being finalized, if not before, you will need to go back to the original software file for any vector image. Remove any external borders or frames that may exist, and then save the figures as separate EPS or PDF files. It is generally a good idea to incorporate the figure number into the file name. Note that portions of a figure may have to be submitted as separate files and then reassembled during the printing process. Do not make the new files from a Microsoft Word version or a TIF or JPG file as that will typically not restore the lost resolution. Before you include your graph in the manuscript, crop all white space around your graph. Also, do not use JPG format, as those graphs usually reproduce poorly!

Vector graphs exported from a drawing program should be stored in EPS (encapsulated post script with preview) or PDF (portable document format with fonts embedded) format. Fonts used in the graphics must either be embedded or converted to outlines (command: Convert text objects [fonts] to path outlines). Please do not draw with very thin lines. The minimum line width is 0.2 mm (i.e. 1 pt) measured at the final scale. Suitable drawing programs are: Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator, Freehand (Macromedia), Open Office Draw, or Inkscape. Remove all horizontal and vertical grid lines.

Figures that are not prepared using software, such as high resolution photographic images (see example below), are generally pixel files and must be treated differently than those figures prepared using software. Convert all your pixel figures into uncompressed TIF files. Suitable image processing programs are: Photoshop, Picture Publisher, Photo Paint, and Paint Shop Pro. Again, if you wish, you can submit your manuscript with the original figures incorporated in the text file, but when you submit the final document, you will need to submit them as separate files in the appropriate format and resolution, so that they can be easily incorporated into the final document during the printing process. Do not fear; you will see them incorporated again when you are reviewing the final electronic proof copy. Please check that your original, after scaling, has the appropriate resolution; only then will the print quality of the scan or image be sufficient.

Fig. 1 Mine water precipitates in a flooded German underground mine. Width: 50 cm.

Now, regardless of whether the figure is a graph or a high-resolution image, take a moment and magnify your final version of each image at least 300 times (300 %) and see if it gets fuzzy. If it does, you need to go back to the original image and prepare a higher resolution figure.

Note that if you submit the figures using these procedures, your figure captions will no longer accompany the figures. Therefore, the figure titles should be provided as a separate Microsoft Word file or in the text file after the reference section.

We also ask our authors to consider whether all their figures and tables are actually essential for understanding and appreciating the research. Less essential figures and tables and those that will only be of interest to readers from the region should be made supplemental and referred to in the text as supplemental Figure/Table S-1, S-2, …. Instead of choosing table or figure from the drop-down menu in Editorial Manager, simply choose the supplementary option. These will then accompany the on-line version of the journal, where our pages are not limited. The remaining figures and tables should then be renumbered. Any interested reader can easily access the supplementary files and download them for free by following a link that is provided with the printed hard copy version of the paper.

Maps of China

The editors of “Mine Water and the Environment” (MWEN) were made aware that some readers might interpret the publication of certain Chinese maps in MWEN as a political statement. This is not the case. MWEN’s author guidelines state that the authors have sole ownership of their articles and confirm that they have been authorized by the copyright holder to assign the right to publish the work. Furthermore, the authors assure that the article does not violate any rights of third parties. The published articles and illustrations therefore reflect the individual views of the authors and are not the official position of IMWA, MWEN, its editorial staff, or publisher. MWEN does not comment on any jurisdictional claims in waters or land which can be derived from the maps, nor does MWEN have any interest in the details of the presented jurisdictional boundaries. Only published scientific results are relevant for MWEN.

Does Springer provide English language support?

General hints

Manuscripts that are accepted for publication will be checked by our copyeditors for spelling and formal style. This may not be sufficient if English is not your native language and substantial editing would be required. In that case, you may want to have your manuscript edited by a native speaker prior to submission. A clear and concise language will help editors and reviewers concentrate on the scientific content of your paper and thus smooth the peer review process.

The following editing service provides language editing for scientific articles in all areas Springer publishes its journals:

Edanz English editing for scientists

Use of an editing service is neither a requirement nor a guarantee of acceptance for publication. Please contact the editing service directly to make arrangements for editing and payment.

For Authors from China

文章在投稿前进行专业的语言润色将对作者的投稿进程有所帮助。作者可自愿选择使用Springer推荐的编辑服务，使用与否并不作为判断文章是否被录用的依据。提高文章的语言质量将有助于审稿人理解文章的内容，通过对学术内容的判断来决定文章的取舍，而不会因为语言问题导致直接退稿。作者需自行联系Springer推荐的编辑服务公司，协商编辑事宜。

理文编辑

For Authors from Japan

ジャーナルに論文を投稿する前に、ネイティブ・スピーカーによる英文校閲を希望されている方には、Edanz社をご紹介しています。サービス内容、料金および申込方法など、日本語による詳しい説明はエダンズグループジャパン株式会社の下記サイトをご覧ください。

エダンズグループジャパン

For Authors from Korea

영어 논문 투고에 앞서 원어민에게 영문 교정을 받고자 하시는 분들께 Edanz 회사를 소개해 드립니다. 서비스 내용, 가격 및

신청 방법 등에 대한 자세한 사항은 저희 Edanz Editing Global 웹사이트를 참조해 주시면 감사하겠습니다.

Edanz Editing Global

After Acceptance

Upon acceptance of your article you will receive a link to the special Author Query Application at Springer’s web page where you can sign the Copyright Transfer Statement online and indicate whether you wish to order OpenChoice and offprints.

Once the Author Query Application has been completed, your article will be processed, and you will receive the proofs.

Open Choice

In addition to the normal publication process (whereby an article is submitted to the journal and access to that article is granted to customers who have purchased a subscription), Springer now provides an alternative publishing option: Springer Open Choice. A Springer Open Choice article receives all the benefits of a regular subscription-based article, but in addition is made available publicly through Springer’s online platform SpringerLink.

Online First

The article will be published online after receipt of the corrected proofs. This is the official first publication citable with the DOI. After release of the printed version, the paper can also be cited by issue and page numbers.

Free e-copy

1 e-copy of the paper is supplied to the communicating author.

Questions?

Please contact:

Dr. Bob Kleinmann
2737 Beechwood Boulevard
Pittsburgh 15217, PA, USA
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it