About this Research Topic

Background

Appropriate environmental water quality is essential to human health and for the environment. Due to current population growth, urbanization and climate change, the increase of water demands results in the degradation of water resources. This is exacerbated by certain human activities such as intensive agriculture and industrial production. Among this, wastewater effluents, such as partially treated, or untreated wastewater are still discharged into water courses and groundwater, resulting in water pollution and deterioration of ecosystems. Wastewater associated microbial degradation of surface water (rivers, streams and lakes) is a major water quality concern at a global scale. Specifically, pathogenic microorganisms originating from wastewater, and which contaminate water courses can cause a source of water-borne diseases. Additionally, the discharges of wastewater are recognized as a major source of phosphorus and nitrogen contributing to eutrophication. Overall, the impacts of untreated wastewater in the quality of freshwater substantially reduce the good water quality availability of a region. As for the monitoring, wastewater-based epidemiology has been useful for the surveillance of pathogens, allowing to identify possible hotspots of infections associated to wastewater. Furthermore, the participation of scientific community as well of citizens in this monitoring is necessary for correct water management.
The monitoring and evaluation of water quality affected by wastewater is a continuous research focus and novel methods approaches are being introduced for better surveillance. Thus, the Research topic goal is to highlight recent research work covering water quality, monitoring and surveillance of wastewater pollution and microbial contamination of water courses.
This Research Topic may include original research and review papers covering (but not limited to) environmental water quality assessment, novel methods of monitoring, as well on the management of water courses affected by wastewater pollution.

Keywords: wastewater pollution, wastewater quality, water quality monitoring, microbial contamination, point source pollution, River and stream contamination, Non-point source pollution

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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