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Airport de-icing has been linked with the growth of undesirable river biofilms (URBs, formerly “sewage fungus”), a manifestation of organic pollution causing long-term ecological damage to watercourses. URBs are a polymicrobial community, with one key taxon standing out in literature: Sphaerotilus natans, a filamentous bacterium also found in sewage treatment and activated sludges. An industry often implicated in causing URBs is airport de-icing, with large biofilms often developing downstream of airport discharges in winter months. However, it is not yet clear which de-icers may cause URBs and how they influence growth. Therefore, specific objectives were to (i) determine which freeze-point depressants (FPDs) can be utilized by S. natans; (ii) examine differences in the growth kinetics between FPDs; and (iii) compare pure-FPDs to commercial airport de-icers (CADs) as carbon sources, to determine impacts of additives. This study employed a turbidimetric micro-batch culture design to conduct microbial growth experiments, using S. natans and a minimal medium supplemented with airport de-icer as the carbon source. Equimolar carbon concentrations were used to compare the effects of common FPDs and CADs – each containing a specific FPD. Growth was assessed via optical density (OD600) measurements, from which time-to-detection, maximum rate of change, and maximum optical density were derived and kinetics inferred. S. natans was found to grow effectively on all FPDs tested, although the microbial yield was heavily dependent on the carbon concentration for all FPDs and CADs. Sodium acetate generated the quickest growth, with the lowest TTD (lag-time) for all but the lowest concentrations tested. Propylene glycol produced the greatest maxOD (total growth), whereas ethylene glycol had a higher limiting concentration for maxROC (growth rate). The mixture of compounds and additives in commercial products did not significantly impact the growth of S. natans. This research provides evidence from controlled laboratory experiments that airport de-icers support the growth of S. natans. The differences in growth kinetics observed for the FPDs and CADs could inform improved mitigation or treatment to reduce the incidence and ecological impacts of URBs.

Prisons are high-risk settings for infectious disease transmission, due to their enclosed and semi-enclosed environments. The proximity between prisoners and staff, and the diversity of prisons reduces the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as social distancing. Therefore, alternative health monitoring methods, such as wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE), are needed to track pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2. This pilot study assessed WBE to quantify SARS-CoV-2 prevalence in prison wastewater to determine its utility within a health protection system for residents. The study analysed 266 samples from six prisons in England over a 12-week period for nucleoprotein 1 (N1 gene) and envelope protein (E gene) using quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction. Both gene assays successfully detected SARS-CoV-2 fragments in wastewater samples, with both genes significantly correlating with COVID-19 case numbers across the prisons (p < 0.01). However, in 25% of the SARS-positive samples, only one gene target was detected, suggesting that both genes be used to reduce false-negative results. No significant differences were observed between 14- and 2-h composite samples, although 2-h samples showed greater signal variance. Population normalisation did not improve correlations between the N1 and E genes and COVID-19 case data. Overall, WBE shows considerable promise for health protection in prison settings. HIGHLIGHTS Wastewater epidemiology is effective in flagging COVID-19 cases in prison settings.; SARS-CoV-2 levels were quantified using N1 and E gene targets.; Both targets should be used in routine analysis to reduce false negatives.; COVID-19 case numbers significantly correlated with both wastewater gene targets across all samples.; Each prison is different – local activities are important when designing sampling programmes.;

Sewage fungus is a classic bioindicator of organic pollution in streams and rivers. However, it has received limited scientific interest in recent decades, despite persistent occurrence in lotic ecosystems. The aim of this review is to provide an up-to-date assessment of sewage fungus, its composition and structure, and the environmental factors that influence its growth to support future research and mitigation interventions. We advocate for the term “undesirable river biofilm” (URB) to more accurately characterise the composition, location, and environmental consequences of sewage fungus. These filamentous or gelatinous growths found on the banks and beds of flowing watercourses are composed predominantly of bacteria, not fungi. Based on modern genomic analyses, we now know that URBs are composed of a diversity of microbial taxa, including those that have long been associated with sewage fungus (e.g. Sphaerotilus, Beggiatoa, and Zoogloea) and newer associated taxa (e.g. Rhodoferax and Thiothrix). While organic pollution is generally considered the main trigger, this review highlights the importance of other environmental factors, such as water velocity, river substrate, pollutant composition and loading, and shading, in the occurrence and persistence of URBs. To illustrate the widespread and continued presence of URBs in rivers, environmental surveillance data for England's rivers were analysed. Between 2000 and 2020, environment officers documented 6,025 occurrences of URBs as part of a wider water quality incident reporting programme. Thus, URBs persist even in countries with stringent water quality standards and comprehensive wastewater infrastructure, suggesting they may continue to be a significant issue globally, despite limited public or scientific focus. We argue that in addition to tackling point discharge of organic pollutants, greater emphasis should be placed on understanding the impact of intermittent and diffuse pollution and altered environmental conditions on river ecosystems. To safeguard river ecosystems, a holistic approach is needed that considers pollution in combination with wider river functioning (e.g. river hydrology, geomorphology, biogeochemical processing, and riparian zones) and climate change. Future areas for study into the URB phenomenon are suggested, including more comprehensive monitoring of URBs specifically and river biofilm health generally.

The widespread use of glyphosate has significantly increased its presence in drinking water sources. Aminomethylphosphonic Acid (AMPA), a breakdown product of glyphosate, is challenging to remove from water using conventional treatment methods, posing risks to public health and environmental safety. This work investigates the biodegradation of AMPA by bacteria isolated from three environmental sources, with a focus on determining their potential application in water treatment systems. Two samples were collected from granular activated carbon (GAC) filters of different operational durations at a water treatment facility, and one sample was taken from soil that had historically been treated with glyphosate-based herbicides. Bacterial isolates capable of degrading AMPA were identified from these samples through selective enrichment, and kinetic degradation experiments were then conducted to assess their effectiveness. In environmental samples, after 48 hrs AMPA removal was > 70 % using GAC from an active treatment plant and soil samples removed 19 %. After bacterial isolation a consortium was isolated and from these four isolates were identified, comprising three species, including novel AMPA degraders M−S3 and M−SS (Myroides sp. mNGS23), and P-S92 (Pseudochrobactrum saccharolyticum). Within both minimal media supplemented with AMPA and raw untreated showing substrate concentrations above 10 mg/L whilst the specific degradation rates saw a decrease in substrate concentrations above 100 mg/L. AMPA removal occured in pilot scale sand filters augmented with P-S92 but removal was inconsistent. These findings show the potential of using biodegradation as an effective treatment strategy for AMPA removal from water. The identification of AMPA-degrading bacteria offers a promising solution for enhancing the removal of this persistent pollutant from contaminated waters. Further research is recommended to explore the full-scale application of these isolates in water treatment processes. This study contributes to the development of sustainable water treatment technologies by harnessing the natural degradative capacities of environmental bacteria.

Organic pollution continues to contaminate river water and degrade aquatic ecosystems worldwide. In heavily modified river systems with high organic loading, sewage fungus, a heterotrophic biofilm, can form on the riverbed. The aim of this study was to determine how the polybacterial community of riverbed biofilms changes prior to and during a sewage fungus outbreak to inform the development of novel biomonitoring approaches. Riverbed biofilm samples were collected from a site that experienced sewage fungus outbreaks previously and an upstream control, following a BACI design. The polybacterial community was characterized using targeted amplicon sequencing (16s rRNA). The results indicate that the community became dominated by two genera prior to and during the sewage fungus outbreak, Rhodoferax and Sphaerotilus, which accounted for 32.8 and 14.2% of the relative abundance. When aggregated at a higher taxonomic level, the genetic data show that the community was comprised largely of bacteria from a single family, Comamonadaceae, totalling 64.1% of the relative abundance. Statistically significant differences in the polybacterial community over time and between impact and control sites provide initial evidence that genetic-based fingerprinting could be a promising biosentinel approach to identify organic pollution inputs and monitor their ecological impact. HIGHLIGHTS Riverbed biofilm community was monitored using 16s rDNA in a BACI design.; Visible sewage fungus outbreak dominated by genera Rhodoferax and Sphaerotilus.; A single family, Comamonadaceae, accounted for 64.1% of the relative abundance during the outbreak.; Significant changes in community occurred before the sewage fungus appeared.; Potential for riverbed biofilm to act as biosentinels for organic river pollution;

BackgroundSchools are high-risk settings for infectious disease transmission. Wastewater monitoring for infectious diseases has been used to identify and mitigate outbreaks in many near-source settings during the COVID-19 pandemic, including universities and hospitals but less is known about the technology when applied for school health protection. This study aimed to implement a wastewater surveillance system to detect SARS-CoV-2 and other public health markers from wastewater in schools in England.MethodsA total of 855 wastewater samples were collected from 16 schools (10 primary, 5 secondary and 1 post-16 and further education) over 10 months of school term time. Wastewater was analysed for SARS-CoV-2 genomic copies of N1 and E genes by RT-qPCR. A subset of wastewater samples was sent for genomic sequencing, enabling determination of the presence of SARS-CoV-2 and emergence of variant(s) contributing to COVID-19 infections within schools. In total, >280 microbial pathogens and >1200 AMR genes were screened using RT-qPCR and metagenomics to consider the utility of these additional targets to further inform on health threats within the schools.ResultsWe report on wastewater-based surveillance for COVID-19 within English primary, secondary and further education schools over a full academic year (October 2020 to July 2021). The highest positivity rate (80.4%) was observed in the week commencing 30th November 2020 during the emergence of the Alpha variant, indicating most schools contained people who were shedding the virus. There was high SARS-CoV-2 amplicon concentration (up to 9.2x106 GC/L) detected over the summer term (8th June - 6th July 2021) during Delta variant prevalence. The summer increase of SARS-CoV-2 in school wastewater was reflected in age-specific clinical COVID-19 cases. Alpha variant and Delta variant were identified in the wastewater by sequencing of samples collected from December to March and June to July, respectively. Lead/lag analysis between SARS-CoV-2 concentrations in school and WWTP data sets show a maximum correlation between the two-time series when school data are lagged by two weeks. Furthermore, wastewater sample enrichment coupled with metagenomic sequencing and rapid informatics enabled the detection of other clinically relevant viral and bacterial pathogens and AMR.ConclusionsPassive wastewater monitoring surveillance in schools can identify cases of COVID-19. Samples can be sequenced to monitor for emerging and current variants of concern at the resolution of school catchments. Wastewater based monitoring for SARS-CoV-2 is a useful tool for SARS-CoV-2 passive surveillance and could be applied for case identification and containment, and mitigation in schools and other congregate settings with high risks of transmission. Wastewater monitoring enables public health authorities to develop targeted prevention and education programmes for hygiene measures within undertested communities across a broad range of use cases.

Rapid population growth and urbanization process have led to increasing demand for wastewater treatment capacity resulting in a non-negligible increase of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in several cities around the world. Bioaerosol emissions from WWTPs may pose adverse health risks to the sewage workers and nearby residents, which raises increasing public health concerns. However, there are still significant knowledge gaps on the interplay between process-based bioaerosol characteristics and exposures and the quantification of health risk which limit our ability to design effective risk assessment and management strategies. This review provides a critical overview of the existing knowledge of bioaerosol emissions from WWTPs including their nature, magnitude and size distribution, and highlights the shortcoming associated with existing sampling and analysis methods. The recent advancements made for rapid detection of bioaerosols are then discussed, especially the emerging real time detection methods to highlight the directions for future research needs to advance the knowledge on bioaerosol emissions from WWTPs.

Prokaryotic diversity in lakes has been studied for many years mainly focusing on community structure and how the bacterial assemblages are driven by physicochemical conditions such as temperature, oxygen, and nutrients. However, little is known about how the composition and function of the prokaryotic community changes upon lake stratification. To elucidate this, we studied Lake Cote in Costa Rica determining prokaryotic diversity and community structure in conjunction with physicochemistry along vertical gradients during stratification and mixing periods. Of the parameters measured, ammonium, oxygen, and temperature, in that order, were the main determinants driving the variability in the prokaryotic community structure of the lake. Distinct stratification of Lake Cote occurred (March 2018) and the community diversity was compared to a period of complete mixing (March 2019). The microbial community analysis indicated that stratification significantly altered the bacterial composition in the epi-meta- and hypolimnion. During stratification, the Deltaproteobacteria, Chloroflexi, Bacteroidetes, Nitrospirae, and Euryarchaeota were dominant in the hypolimnion yet largely absent in surface layers. Among these taxa, strict or facultative anaerobic bacteria were likely contributing to the lake nitrogen biogeochemical cycling, consistent with measurements of inorganic nitrogen measurements and microbial functional abundance predictions. In general, during both sampling events, a higher abundance of Alphaproteobacteria, Betaproteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Cyanobacteria was found in the oxygenated layers. Lake Cote had a unique bacterial diversity, with 80% of Amplicon Sequence Variant (ASV) recovered similar to unclassified/uncultured strains and exhibits archetypal shallow lake physicochemical but not microbial fluctuations worthy of further investigation. This study provides an example of lake hydrodynamics impacts to microbial community and their function in Central American lakes with implications for other shallow, upland, and oligotrophic lake systems.

Coliphages are virus that infect coliform bacteria and are used in aquatic systems for risk assessment for human enteric viruses. This mini-review appraises the types and sources of coliphage and their fate and behavior in source waters and engineered drinking water treatment systems. Somatic (cell wall infection) and F+ (male specific) coliphages are abundant in drinking water sources and are used as indicators of fecal contamination. Coliphage abundances do not consistently correlate to human enteric virus abundance, but they suitably reflect the risks of exposure to human enteric viruses. Coliphages have highly variable surface characteristics with respect to morphology, size, charge, isoelectric point, and hydrophobicity which together interact to govern partitioning and removal characteristics during water treatment. The groups somatic and F+ coliphages are valuable for investigating the virus elimination during water treatment steps and as indicators for viral water quality assessment. Strain level analyses (e.g., Qβ or GA-like) provide more information about specific sources of viral pollution but are impractical for routine monitoring. Consistent links between rapid online monitoring tools (e.g., turbidity, particle counters, and flow cytometry) and phages in drinking water have yet to be established but are recommended as a future area of research activity. This could enable the real-time monitoring of virus and improve the process understanding during transient operational events. Exciting future prospects for the use of coliphages in aquatic microbiology are also discussed based on current scientific evidence and practical needs.

Clinical testing of children in schools is challenging, with economic implications limiting its frequent use as a monitoring tool of the risks assumed by children and staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, a wastewater-based epidemiology approach has been used to monitor 16 schools (10 primary, 5 secondary and 1 post-16 and further education) in England. A total of 296 samples over 9 weeks have been analysed for N1 and E genes using qPCR methods. Of the samples returned, 47.3% were positive for one or both genes with a detection frequency in line with the respective local community. WBE offers a low cost, non-invasive approach for supplementing clinical testing and can provide longitudinal insights that are impractical with traditional clinical testing.

Here, multifunctional heterogeneous ion-exchange metal nanocomposite membranes were prepared for surface water desalination and bacterial inactivation under low-pressure (0.05 MPa) filtration conditions. Ultrafiltration (UF) heterogeneous ion exchange membranes (IEMs) were modified with different concentrations of AgNO3 and CuSO4 solutions using the intermatrix synthesis (IMS) technique to produce metal nanocomposite membranes. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images revealed that the metal nanoparticles (MNPs) (Ag and Cu) were uniformly distributed on the surface and the interior of the nanocomposite membranes. With increasing metal precursor solution concentration (0.01 to 0.05 mol·L−1), the metal content of Ag and Cu nanocomposite membranes increased from 0.020 to 0.084 mg·cm−2 and from 0.031 to 0.218 m·cm−2 respectively. Results showed that the hydrodynamic diameter diameters of Ag and Cu nanoparticles (NPs) increased from 62.42 to 121.10 nm and from 54.2 to 125.7 nm respectively, as the metal precursor concentration loaded increased. The leaching of metals from metal nanocomposite membranes was measured in a dead-end filtration system, and the highest leaching concentration levels were 8.72 ppb and 5.32 ppb for Ag and Cu, respectively. The salt rejection studies indicated that ionic selectivity was improved with increasing metal content. Bacterial filtration showed higher antibacterial activity for metal nanocomposite membranes, reaching 3.6 log bacterial inactivation.

Arid areas often contain brackish groundwater that has a salinity exceeding 500 mg/L. This poses several challenges to the users of the water such as a salty taste and damage to household appliances. Desalination can be one of the key solutions to significantly lower the salinity and solute content of the water. However, the technology requires high energy inputs as well as managing waste products. This paper presents the fabrication of ultrafiltration heterogeneous ion exchange membranes for brackish groundwater treatment. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images showed a relatively uniform resin particle distribution within the polymer matrix. The mean roughness of the cation exchange membrane (CEM) and anion exchange membrane (AEM) surfaces increased from 42.12 to 317.25 and 68.56 to 295.95 nm, respectively, when resin loading was increased from 1 to 3.5 wt %. Contact angle measures suggested a more hydrophilic surface (86.13 to 76.26° and 88.10 to 74.47° for CEM and AEM, respectively) was achieved with greater resin loading rates. The ion exchange capacity (IEC) of the prepared membranes was assessed using synthetic groundwater in a dead-end filtration system and removal efficiency of K+, Mg2+, and Ca2+ were 56.0, 93.5, and 85.4%, respectively, for CEM with the highest resin loading. Additionally, the anion, NO3− and SO42− removal efficiency was 84.2% and 52.4%, respectively, for the AEM with the highest resin loading. This work demonstrates that the prepared ultrafiltration heterogeneous ion exchange membranes have potential for selective removal for of ions by ion exchange, under filtration conditions at low pressure of 0.05 MPa.