New Insight into the Roles of Microorganisms in Municipal and Environmental Engineering Technologies/Systems - Volume II

Both municipal engineering and environmental engineering are disciplines aiming at promoting human welfare. The former focuses on establishing life-supporting public infrastructure, while the latter emphasizes treatment and restoration of polluted environment. Typically, the engineers deal with various contaminants (e.g., nutrients, heavy metals and organic contaminants) existing in different environmental media (e.g., soils, water sources, sewage and solid wastes). So far, plenty of technologies and engineering systems have been developed in which microorganisms play important parts. In some cases, microorganisms play a leading role, as their metabolism influences the degradation and transformation of the contaminants. In other cases, as a part of the target environments, microbial communities are forced to change, which reflects the performance of the applied technologies/systems or their impacts on the health of ecosystems and living organisms.

With rapid urbanization, industrialization and modernization, situations are changing significantly. On the one hand, anthropogenic activities are aggravating environmental deterioration, and new contaminants are more frequently and broadly showing up, such as endocrine-disrupting compounds, nanoparticles, microplastics, antibiotic resistance genes and unprecedented organic/inorganic/combined contaminants. These emerging contaminants, either independently or interactively with conventional contaminants, pose new challenges to the existing municipal and environmental engineering technologies/systems. In the meantime, excellent scientists and engineers are pushing their technologies/systems to the limit, consistently pursuing countermeasures via improvement, upgrade and innovation. In such a profoundly changing background, the roles of the related microorganisms vary quantitatively and/or qualitatively, if not wholly a black box. Without a thorough investigation of the microorganisms, feedback and guidance on the application and optimization of technologies/systems could not be efficaciously provided. Under empirical and even blinded operations, inefficiency and failure are very likely to happen. Therefore, we are calling for papers presenting the latest comprehension and in-depth elucidation of the microbial roles relevant to municipal and environmental engineering technologies/systems, as a key research field parallel to the studies regarding the contaminants’ transport, transformation, fate, toxicology, ecological and health risk, etc.

To take a new insight into the microbial roles in municipal and environmental engineering technologies/systems, specific themes of primary interest include but are not limited to:

(1) Mechanistical studies regarding the interactions between microbes and contaminants, e.g., microbes-mediated degradation, transformation, immobilization and resourcilization, gut microbiota and the relevant toxicity and bioavailability of contaminants;
(2) Novel approaches for the enhancement of microbial performance, e.g., coupling with functional materials, and rhizoremediation, bioenvironmental and energy engineering processes for organic waste recycling and agricultural/aquaculture systems;
(3) Microbial sensing and responses to environmental changes, including applied remediation agents;
(4) Monitoring and control of microbial stability, and the relevant environmental and health risks;

As the core concern of this Research Topic, the revelation of microbial information (e.g., abundance, diversity, distribution, activities and functions) should contribute to performance evaluation, impact assessment, and more importantly, advancement of the technologies/systems. Although studies on emerging contaminants and advanced technologies/systems are preferred, conventional ones are also welcome, provided new insight into microbial roles is explicitly discussed.

Both Original Research and Review articles are acceptable.