Oh yes, impact factor is a fairly dated way of evaluating the quality of a journal and can easily be gamed by self-citation or the methods mentioned above. But a cursory perusal of STOTEN’s other articles suggests there is interdisciplinary research published there that is more mainstream (which is not to say it is excellent research). Their about section reads:
“Science of the Total Environment is an international multi-disciplinary journal for publication of novel, hypothesis-driven and high-impact research on the total environment, which interfaces the atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and anthroposphere.”
It seems like the kind of place people go once their papers are rejected from higher impact journals. However, it doesn’t appear to be a predatory journal or a flimsy type of OA journal. It’s striking that an article like this one could have made it past the editors and is a real black eye for them.
