Origin

The founders of Annals of Environmental Science (AES) are Drs. Elham Ghabbour, Geoffrey Davies and Robert Wershaw. Together, they determined that AES would be an on-line, rigorously peer-reviewed, open-access journal for the environmental sciences, broadly defined. The journal would be indistinguishable in all respects from any established and respected journal except it would be completely free to authors and readers on-line anywhere at any time in the world.

The idea for the journal came after a plenary lecture by Dr Robert Wershaw of the United States Geological Survey at a Conference at Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts on July 21, 2002. His title �Establishment of a Web-based Forum for the Rapid Publication of Extended Abstracts� was in keeping with the strong growth of interest in on-line science publication to avoid the costs and limited library space for the many, print journals available at the time.

Thanks to the co-operation and generosity of Northeastern University, AES found a home on the powerful IRIS server in the Snell Library at Northeastern and the journal was officially launched on March 12, 2007. With the welcome assistance of voluntary Editors and a distinguished Editorial Board, the AES Editorial Office at Northeastern manages peer-review and timely publication of the highest quality research in the environmental sciences, broadly defined. And, as envisioned, AES is on-line, rigorously peer-reviewed, open-access and completely free of charge for seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five days a year - we hope to the benefit of environmental scientists and the public everywhere, broadly defined.