The widespread presence of trace organic contaminants (TOrC), such as the endocrine disrupting compound bisphenol-A (BPA), has been cause for growing concern due to persistence in the environment and potential ecological impacts. Despite progress made in understanding the removal of TOrC in biological wastewater treatment processes, there is still a lack of consensus regarding the identity of microorganisms active in biodegradation and the exact removal mechanisms involved. This research aimed to develop a clear understanding of the microbial ‘active’ fraction in activated sludge which is responsible for the assimilation of a selected TOrC, BPA. Through the use of DNA stable isotope probing (DNA-SIP), BPA assimilating organisms were identified.  This active fraction of BPA assimilation included bacteria related to Sphingobium spp., Sphingomonas spp., Pussilimonas spp., and Variovorax spp.. Results from this work also confirm that prior or time-course exposure to BPA as well as bioreactor process conditions influence microbial community structure and function. Added understanding of TOrC removal mechanisms could be derived through continued investigation into microbial functions associated with BPA removal.

Project Number: U2R12

This most up-to date book addresses the interdisciplinary area of drinking water quality monitoring by microbiological sensors. It is edited and written by leading water professionals and experts, and binds together interests and competences within sensing technology, system behavior, business needs, legislation, education, data handling, and intelligent response algorithms.

The book contains chapters on:

• the history of water monitoring and early sensors
• the current landscape of microbiological sensors and different measuring concepts
• needs from the water industry
• detailed description of several state-of-the-art sensor technologies
• water industry case stories with operator experience
• examples of on-line data collection and data handling
• microbiological sensors applied in education and industry workshops
• regulator aspects of introducing microbiological sensors

It is the hope that the book will be widely used by water utility managers, technical staff working with drinking water safety, educators in the field of water quality and regulators in this field worldwide. Furthermore, that it will help bridge the gaps between these diverse and otherwise differently oriented water professionals.

The ebook edition of this title is freely available as an Open Access text. 

Treatment Wetlands is the seventh volume in the Biological Wastewater Treatment series, which gives a state-of-the-art presentation of the science and technology of sewage treatment. The major variants of wetland systems are covered in this volume, namely: (i) horizontal flow wetlands; (ii) vertical flow wetlands; (iii) French vertical flow wetlands; (iv) intensified wetlands; (v) free water surface wetlands; (vi) other applications of treatment wetlands. The book presents in a clear and didactic way the main concepts, working principles, expected performance, design criteria, design examples, construction aspects and operational guidelines. The book has been written by an international team of top experts in the field of treatment wetlands.  

About the series:

This highly acclaimed series comprises seven textbooks  – available in print or as Open Access ebooks – which provide a state-of-the-art presentation of the science and technology of biological wastewater treatment. All volumes of the series have been thoroughly used by students, researchers and practitioners in developed and developing countries.

Titles in the Biological Wastewater Treatment series:

Volume 1: Wastewater Characteristics, Treatment and Disposal

Volume 2: Basic Principles of Wastewater Treatment

Volume 3: Waste Stabilisation Ponds

Volume 4: Anaerobic Reactors

Volume 5: Activated Sludge and Aerobic Biofilm Reactors

Volume 6: Sludge Treatment and Disposal

Volume 7: Treatment Wetlands

This project was undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of urban riparian forest buffers for a number of potential functions. States and local jurisdictions are increasingly requiring riparian buffers during the development of land for urban uses. At the same time these same jurisdictions must meet the requirements of Total Maximum Daily Loads for pollutant reduction, NPDES-Municipal Stormwater Discharge Permits, and other environmental programs, such as, the Chesapeake Bay Program that require not only pollutant load reductions, but also habitat improvements. This research provides needed information urban riparian forest buffers through a field research design that incorporated a contrast between three sites with a high degree of forested riparian buffer with three sites that had a low amount of forested buffer. The research included, hydrologic measurements, pollutant concentration and load measurements, temperature recordation, buffer floristic analysis, and stream benthic community analysis. This study demonstrates the value of urban riparian forest buffers as a Best Management Practice and provides a model ordinance for use in the development of local jurisdiction stream buffer requirements.  This report is available as a pay-per-view item only.

Although more than 70% of the globe is covered with water, only a small portion is suitable for direct human use, making the scarcity of freshwater one of our plant's most serious challenges. In this context "desalination", defined as "the removal of salt from water", is one of the possible solutions for overcoming our planet's municipal and industrial thirst.

By drawing upon the authoritative expertise of a remarkable team of international authors, this book aims to provide an encompassing and "multidisciplinary" introduction to various aspects of desalination. The forte of this publication is that it does not overtly focus on a particular sub-topic of desalination, but rather addresses the topic as a whole. In other words, the unique assortment of reader-friendly chapters is designed to strike a delicate balance between the technical and non-technical.

The book is divided into five general sections:

• The first section presents an overview of water scarcity, followed by a review of integrated water management and the alternatives to desalination. The fundamentals of desalination are provided, including simple water chemistry;
• The second section covers the conventional technologies of today, including thermal and membrane desalination processes. The topics of pre- and post- treatment are given due credit, as no desalination plant can operate without them;
• The third section reviews the history of how desalination technologies originated, including a review of today's R&D activities and cutting edge research. The processes and engineering applied for membrane manufacturing are also presented;
• Section four is concerned with energy and environmental issues, including the application of renewable and nuclear energy, minimization of energy usage and the water-energy-nexus, brine management, and environmental impacts;
• Finally, section five covers the social and commercial issues, ranging from rural desalination, to the politics of desalination. Desalination costs and feasibility are presented, as well as issues in business development and the future market prospects.

Effectively, A Multidisciplinary Introduction to Desalination aims to be a holistic go-to-compendium for anyone seeking a balanced understanding of the various facets of desalination

This book is co-published with River Publications

Sustainable Urban Metabolism summarizes the state-of-the-art in issues related to sustainable urban metabolism referred to treatment and management of water, wastewater and solid wastes, with specific reference to state-of-the-art applicable technologies for energy savings and recovery.

Because of the uneven distribution of fresh water in time and space and the increasing human population, a large number of regions are experiencing water scarcity and stress. Membrane-based desalination technologies like reverse osmosis have the potential to solve the fresh water crisis in coastal areas. However, in many cases membrane performance is restricted by biofouling. 

Biofouling of Membrane Systems gives a comprehensive overview on the state-of-the-art strategies to control biofouling in spiral wound reverse osmosis membrane systems and point to possible future research directions. Despite the fact that much research and development has been done to overcome biofouling in spiral wound membrane systems used for water treatment, biofouling is still a major practical problem causing performance decline and increased energy demand. Biofouling of Membrane Systems is divided into three sections including: hydrodynamics and its impact on spiral wound module design and performance; non-destructive on-line, in-situ biofilm characterization and feed spacer geometry optimization; and system operation. It focuses on the development of biomass in the feed channel of the membrane module and its effect on pressure drop and hydrodynamics. The book can be used to develop an integral strategy to control biofouling in spiral wound membrane systems. An overview of several potential complementary approaches to solve biofouling is given and an integrated approach for biofouling control and feed spacer design is proposed.

Assessment of Treatment Plant Performance provides practical indications on how to undertake performance evaluation of water and wastewater treatment units, processes, and plants, using math and statistics as a tool. The objective is to approach the concepts based on the needs and challenges associated with treatment plant performance evaluation, and to use simple language to describe the mathematical calculations and statistical analyses that can be used for this purpose.

Written primarily for graduate level students, the concepts and applications will be presented from practice to theory in a simplified and practical way, thus making the book equally beneficial to practitioners and policy-makers, who may have a limited background in math and statistics.  Postdoctoral scientists and professors will also find it useful if they are involved in research projects that comprise the assessment of treatment performance.

The book provides an overarching framework on water and sanitation services and how they are coping with resilience, aging infrastructure and climate change. The editors present conceptual evidence about resilience backed by case studies that demonstrate resilience in practice. There are 19 case studies, from Asia, Africa, Europe and North & South America providing informative perspectives from around the world. This is a timely collection of historic and contemporary evidence that will have increasing relevance in the coming decades. This volume will be of relevance to both scholars and practitioners.

Throughout history, the first and foremost role of urban water management has been the protection human health and the local aquatic environment. To this end, the practice of (waste-)water treatment has maintained a central focus on the removal of pollutants through dissipative pathways. Approaches like – in case of wastewater treatment – the activated sludge process, which make ‘hazardous things’ disappear, have benefitted our society tremendously by safeguarding human and environmental health. While conventional (waste-)water treatment is regarded as one of the greatest engineering achievements of the 20th century, these dissipative approaches will not suffice in the 21th century as we enter the era of the circular economy. A key challenge for the future of urban water management is the need to re-envision the role of water infrastructure, still holding paramount the safeguard of human and environmental health while also becoming a more proactive force for sustainable development through the recovery of resources embedded in urban water. This book aims (i) to explain the basic principles governing resource recovery from water (how much is there, really); (ii) to provide comprehensive overview and critical assessment of the established and emerging technologies for resource recovery from water; and (iii) to put resource recovery from water in a legal, economic (including the economy of scale of recovered products), social (consumer’s point of view), and environmental sustainability framework. This book serves as a powerful teaching tool at the graduate entry master level with an aim to developing the next generation of engineers and experts and is also highly relevant for seasoned water professionals and practicing engineers.

This book describes theory and approach for a comprehensive and applied physicochemical model for wastewater treatment. These are reactions which occur without a biological mediator, and are critical to both the biology of wastewater treatment, and stand-alone chemical treatment units. The book includes description of acid-base theory, solution ion pairing and non-ideality, participation with other phases, and chemical oxidation/reduction. Full implementation details are provided, including in a plant wide modelling context, and with respect to required extensions to biological models to describe more complex aspects of the iron-sulfur-phosphorous system, which requires all components of the model to be properly described.

The book will cover the topic of microplastics in water and wastewater. There is a growing interest of the scientific community on microplastics. Most of the studies identified the problems due to microplastics in the marine environment.  However, considering that most microplastics are produced on land, similar problems should be encountered in freshwater systems and wastewater treatment plants that at the same time are the sources of marine microplastics. The human water cycle and points where the microplastics could interact with water will be presented as the introductory chapter. The subsequent chapters will examine evidence of the microplastics presence in freshwater such as both rivers and lakes and also, hazardous chemicals associated with microplastics in such systems. The following chapters will discuss the presence of microplastics in wastewater, their sources, their transfer through a wastewater treatment plant, their concentration in effluents throughout the world, and their distribution and effects on the surrounding environment of effluent wastewater pipes.  Further chapters will discuss the sampling methods, the sample treatment and analysis techniques used so far for identifying microplastics in wastewater.  Additionally, the presence of microplastics in sewage sludge and in soils irrigated with wastewater or fertilized with sludge, as well as the possible effects on plants and human health will be discussed.  A concluding chapter will discuss the necessity for plastics strategies.

Both quantitative and qualitative problems in drinking water supply occur due to higher water demand, water pollution and emerging pollutants in developing countries as well as in developed countries. Rainwater has seldom been considered as a drinking water source, although it has been practiced since the beginning of human history. There are scientific, economic and social barriers to promoting rainwater harvesting for drinking. Such barriers can, however, be overcome by science and technology supported by case studies. This book will show how drinking water problems can be readily solved by rainwater as a decentralized water supply system in combination with a centralized system.

This textbook covers the fundamentals of fouling and scaling in reverse osmosis systems. It includes theory and practice of pre-treatment, fouling and scaling in reverse osmosis applied for drinking and industrial water production. The impact of the water source – seawater, river water, brackish groundwater and (treated domestic) waste water – will be discussed in depth. The book presents the knowledge and experience gained at IHE Delft over the last 25 years during the implementation of the master programme in Water Supply Engineering and during the implementation of state-of-the-art research in understanding and solving operational problems in full scale desalination plants. It presents the expert knowledge of IHE Delft in the areas of pre-treatment for reverse osmosis systems, assessment of water quality with respect to fouling potential, development of methods for quality assessment, modified fouling index ultrafiltration at constant flux, transparent exopolymer particles, antiscalant dose optimization, biological growth potential), algal blooms, scaling control.  The book will be used in the annual master programme at IHE Delft and it will be of interest for students, academics, engineers and managers in drinking water facilities all over the world.

Watermaths presents the mathematics underpinning the design and operation of the individual unit process technologies used for purifying water and wastewater. The book aims to provide sufficient information to enable you to tackle the most important calculations in this area, without requiring any prior knowledge of the subject and assuming only a very basic grounding in science or engineering. 

This book focuses on the most essential areas of knowledge required, containing tuition in basic numeracy as well as the chemistry, process engineering and fluid physics of water and wastewater treatment technology. The simple and succinct delivery is designed to get you up to speed as rapidly as possible: you are given sufficient background information to explain the purpose of the calculations, and ultimately tackle the complete wastewater reclamation plant design problem at the end. Each chapter contains example calculations, followed by exercises intended to reinforce the learning (for which solutions are given). Exercises range in difficulty from simple single calculational-step problems to more complex ones, and the over-arching design problem provides some context to the mathematics. 

The third edition is extended to include cost analysis – calculation of net present value from capital and operating expenditure with discounting – and the determination of key biological process parameters. There are also additional exercises included in most chapters, along with representative drawings of the key unit processes as used in process and instrumentation diagrams. 

Watermaths is designed to be understood by those relatively new to the water sector and is intended as a primer rather than a comprehensive handbook. At the same time, it is sufficiently comprehensive to permit design calculations for most water and wastewater treatment unit processes.

Future Drinking Water Infrastructure is an Open Access co-publication with KWR.

Public Involvement in Knowledge Generation is an Open Access co-publication with KWR.