From smart sensing to adaptive remediation: artificial intelligence and Internet of Things for persistent organic pollutants

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) remain a major environmental challenge because of their persistence, long-range transport, bioaccumulation, and resistance to degradation. Conventional monitoring and remediation systems provide reliable analytical performance but are largely fragmented, laboratory dependent, and unable to deliver the continuous, predictive, and adaptive management required for complex, dynamic contamination scenarios. Recent literature reports substantial advances in biosensors, Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled sensing, machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI) for pollutant detection, forecasting, source identification, and remediation optimization. However, these developments often operate separately, with limited coordination between environmental sensing, data analytics, treatment processes, and decision-making. The literature further highlights persistent barriers to field deployment, including limited and geographically heterogeneous datasets, inconsistent sensor performance and calibration, restricted model transferability, insufficient independent validation, uncertainty in AI predictions, and the lack of mature regulatory frameworks for AI-assisted environmental assessment. From our perspective, the next advance in POP management should move beyond isolated AI applications toward integrated, closed-loop AI-IoT architectures that continuously connect sensing, prediction, remediation, and feedback control. Such systems could transform POP management from reactive assessment to proactive and adaptive environmental governance. Future progress will depend on standardized, Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) environmental datasets, explainable and uncertainty-aware AI, robust field validation, and interoperable sensing infrastructures.