News & Comment

Wastewater-based epidemiology was widely used to monitor the spreading of COVID-19. We should now build on the knowledge acquired over the past three years to extend the use of the technique to a wide range of human health and lifestyle aspects.

The successful use of wastewater-based data during the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the creation of the National Wastewater Surveillance System in the USA for pathogen monitoring. Now a complementary system is needed for help tackling the opioid epidemic.

Wastewater surveillance enables tracking infectious disease dynamics and community prevalence quantification for public health. However, the testing requirement of centralized laboratories and well-trained staff challenges underserved areas and low-resource settings. The development of new rapid and low-cost sensors enables in-field testing of wastewater from the community to the individual building levels for early warning of pandemics.

More support for environmental surveillance can boost the potential of this approach in LMICs.

Although the events at the United Nations (UN) 2023 Water Conference provided countless opportunities to discuss the water challenges we are facing, proper action should now be taken by UN member states to tackle the global water crisis.

Due to technological, economic and environmental constraints, contemporary treatment plants cannot treat all wastewater. In particular, the very high amount of agricultural and urban runoff to be treated is increasingly concerning, especially with more erratic — and unpredictable — rainfall events. Passive ecosystem services can be combined with engineered processes to create hybrid, locally adapted, inexpensive and sustainable technologies to more feasibly treat runoff and wastewater globally.

Although often ignored or belittled by irrigation engineers and development planners, vernacular and counter designs in irrigation should be considered as valuable and complementary to the mainstream approaches of engineers and planners.

In the context of the March 2023 United Nations (UN) Water Conference, this note urges the leaders of UN Member States to deliberate the waters they share.

The opinions and desires of young researchers and youth action groups should be considered when planning solutions to water-related challenges at local and global scales.

The United Nations 2023 Water Conference is a unique opportunity to create momentum to combat the global water crisis.

Transforming how we understand, value and manage water towards water security and resilience will accelerate progress in achieving the 2030 Agenda. On 22–24 March 2023, a unique United Nations (UN) Conference on water will be held, uniting the world for water. We reflect on this once-in-generation opportunity, and how it can spillover a just and sustainable transformation across all sectors and governance levels.

As climate-induced shocks and stresses increasingly occupy media attention, funding, national and global policy, and technical practice are shifting towards alignment with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC’s) Paris Agreement and away from the more narrowly sectoral Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Water resilience is emerging as a critical delivery mechanism for the Paris Agreement as the importance of adaptation and resilience accelerates. The SDGs, in contrast, have been unable to make use of either water resources or climate resilience as enabling tools for cross-sectoral integration and development coherence.

The United Nation 2023 Water Conference offers a critical opportunity to catalyse actions and innovations that bring increased water security to vulnerable communities across the globe. Researchers have an important role in supporting the delivery of needed on-the-ground impact, but their work must be informed by the priorities and necessities of Global South implementors.