Challenges and Opportunities in Wastewater Reuse
A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Wastewater Treatment and Reuse".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2019) | Viewed by 3137
Special Issue Editors
Interests: advanced oxidation processes; photocatalytic processes; antibiotic resistance; contaminants of emerging concern; industrial wastewater treatment; wastewater disinfection; wastewater reuse
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Nowadays, it is becoming increasingly clear that urban treated wastewater, whose reuse has become an important component of long-term water resources management worldwide, is a key source of both chemical and biological contaminants of emerging concern (CECs). Current water quality guidelines for reclaimed wastewater predominantly address risks associated with the presence of microbial organisms and chemical parameters, such as Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), E. coli, and worms, and in some cases heavy metals, which, however are insufficient for complete risk assessment. Current open challenges related to CECs include (i) their transformation when present in urban wastewater treatment plants and in environmental matrices (soil, groundwater, and surface water), (ii) their accumulation in soil and uptake by plants components, (iii) their biological potency for environmental effects to non-target organisms, (iv) the evolution and spread of antibiotic resistance determinants, and (v) the development and application of sustainable technologies that are able to remove or minimize such microcontaminants in wastewater. The potential environmental and health effects of wastewater reuse in relation to CECs is now a priority for various organizations (e.g., European Commission, ISO, and CEN (standards)). This Special Issue aims at gathering novel research and review papers from scientists working in the field, to identify the main barriers and constraints that will have to be overcome if wastewater reuse strategies are meant to gather more momentum and be adopted on a larger and more effective scale than at present, safely and sustainably.
We invite submissions to this Special Issue that extend and advance the scientific knowledge and state of the art in the field of wastewater reuse and related emerging challenges in areas that include but are not limited to the following:
- Chemical and biological contaminants of emerging concern in treated urban wastewater and in downstream environments;
- Transmission and uptake of chemical and biological microcontaminants (antibiotic-resistant bacteria and resistance genes) in irrigated soils and crops;
- Current applications and challenges of effect-based bioassays in the framework of wastewater reuse;
- The state-of-the-art of existing and emerging treatment technologies with respect to sustainable and safe wastewater reuse;
- Risk assessment frameworks relevant to wastewater reuse applications.
Prof. Luigi Rizzo
Dr. Irene Michael-Kordatou
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- contaminants of emerging concern
- antibiotic resistance
- effect-based bioassays
- crops’ uptake
- biological and chemical wastewater treatment processes
- advanced chemical oxidation processes
- risk assessment
