Three years of wastewater surveillance for new psychoactive substances from 16 countries.

The proliferation of new psychoactive substances (NPS) over recent years has made their surveillance complex. The analysis of raw municipal influent wastewater can allow a broader insight into community consumption patterns of NPS. This study examines data from an international wastewater surveillance program that collected and analysed influent wastewater samples from up to 47 sites in 16 countries between 2019 and 2022. Influent wastewater samples were collected over the New Year period and analysed using validated liquid chromatography - mass spectrometry methods. Over the three years, a total of 18 NPS were found in at least one site. Synthetic cathinones were the most found class followed by phenethylamines and designer benzodiazepines. Furthermore, two ketamine analogues, one plant based NPS (mitragynine) and methiopropamine were also quantified across the three years. This work demonstrates that NPS are used across different continents and countries with the use of some more evident in particular regions. For example, mitragynine has highest mass loads in sites in the United States, while eutylone and 3-methylmethcathinone increased considerably in New Zealand and in several European countries, respectively. Moreover, 2F-deschloroketamine, an analogue of ketamine, has emerged more recently and could be quantified in several sites, including one in China, where it is considered as one of the drugs of most concern. Finally, some NPS were detected in specific regions during the initial sampling campaigns and spread to additional sites by the third campaign. Hence, wastewater surveillance can provide an insight into temporal and spatial trends of NPS use.

Preface

We are pleased to provide you with the proceedings of 2022 4th International Conference on Resources and Environment Sciences (ICRES 2022).The conference was expected to be held during June 10-12, 2022 in Bangkok, Thailand, while the situation of COVID-19 pandemic is unpredictable and unstable. Most of conference participants could not travel to attend the conference venue to do oral presentations. Taking all conditions into consideration, conference committee decided to change physical conference into virtual conference. It was held online by ZOOM application successfully during the same date.The conference was highlighted by four outstanding Keynote Speakers and two invited speakers. Keynote speakers include Prof. Kaimin Shih, The University of Hong Kong, China with his topic "Metal Stabilization and Resource Recovery Examples in Urban Environment”;Prof. Nur Islami, University of Riau, Indonesia who presented a talk on "An Valuable Approach to Study Groundwater Contamination in a Shallow Aquifer System”;Prof. Danny Sutanto, University of Wollongong, Australia who shared a speech on "Solid-State Transformer for Smart Power Grid Applications”;Assoc. Prof. Phebe Ding, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia who presented a talk about "Role of Postharvest Technology in Producing Quality Fresh Horticultural Produces”. Additionally, two excellent invited speakers, Assoc. Prof. Chunrong Jia from University of Memphis, Tennessee, USA with speech title "Apportioning variability of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the ambient air in the Memphis Tri-State Area, USA”, and Assoc. Prof. Farhad Shahnia from Murdoch University, Australia with speech title "Recent and Future Research on Microgrid Clusters”.Each normal oral presenter had about 12 Minutes of Presentation and 3 Minutes of Question and Answer. Conference was organized in 5 sessions with various topics: Environmental Management, Waste Utilization and Sustainable Development, Wastewater Treatment, Water Analysis and Hydraulic Engineering, Renewable Energy Technology, Chemical Engineering and Fluid Mechanics, Resources and Environmental Science & Sustainable Development, Energy and Chemical Engineering.All accepted papers presented at the ICRES 2022 were included in this volume, which contained three chapters with topics: (1) Environmental Pollution and Control (2) Waste Management and Utilization (3) Clean Energy and Technology. All papers were subjected to peer-review by conference committee members and international reviewers. The papers were selected based on high quality and high relevancy to the conference scope.We would like to express our sincere gratitude to organizing committee and the volunteers who have dedicated their time and efforts in planning, promoting, and helping the conference. We hope that the readers would gain some valuable knowledge from this effort.List of Committees, Statement of Peer Review are available in this Pdf.

VirPool: model-based estimation of SARS-CoV-2 variant proportions in wastewater samples.

BACKGROUND: The genomes of SARS-CoV-2 are classified into variants, some of which are monitored as variants of concern (e.g. the Delta variant B.1.617.2 or Omicron variant B.1.1.529). Proportions of these variants circulating in a human population are typically estimated by large-scale sequencing of individual patient samples. Sequencing a mixture of SARS-CoV-2 RNA molecules from wastewater provides a cost-effective alternative, but requires methods for estimating variant proportions in a mixed sample. RESULTS: We propose a new method based on a probabilistic model of sequencing reads, capturing sequence diversity present within individual variants, as well as sequencing errors. The algorithm is implemented in an open source Python program called VirPool. We evaluate the accuracy of VirPool on several simulated and real sequencing data sets from both Illumina and nanopore sequencing platforms, including wastewater samples from Austria and France monitoring the onset of the Alpha variant. CONCLUSIONS: VirPool is a versatile tool for wastewater and other mixed-sample analysis that can handle both short- and long-read sequencing data. Our approach does not require pre-selection of characteristic mutations for variant profiles, it is able to use the entire length of reads instead of just the most informative positions, and can also capture haplotype dependencies within a single read.

Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in Urban Wastewater in Italy

The presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewaters was demonstrated early into the COVID-19 pandemic. Data on the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in urban wastewater can be exploited for different aims, including: i) description of outbreaks trends, ii) early warning system for new COVID-19 outbreaks or for the spread of the virus in new territories, iii) study of SARS-Co V-2 genetic diversity and detection of its variants, and iv) estimating the prevalence of COVID-19 infections. Therefore, wastewater surveillance (known as Wastewater Based Epidemiology, WBE) can be a powerful tool to support the decision-making process on public health measures. Italy was among the first EU countries investigating the occurrence and concentration of SARS-Co V-2 RNA in urban wastewaters, virus detection being accomplished at an early phase of the epidemic, between February and May 2020 in north and central Italy. The present study reports on the methodological issues, related to sample data collection and management, encountered in establishing the systematic, wastewater-based SARS-CoV-2 surveillance, and describes the results of the first six months of surveillance. © 2022 IEEE.

Utjecaj pandemije 2020. godine na rezultate analize potreba za vodom i posljedično definiranje količina otpadnih voda i kapaciteta UPOV-a

S ciljem suzbijanja globalne pandemije bolesti COVID-19 tijekom 2020. godine uvedene su stroge mjere koje su ograničavale brojne aktivnosti, djelatnosti i kretanje stanovništva na razini cijelog Svijeta pa tako i Hrvatske. U ovom radu analiziran je utjecaj uvedenih ograničenja na kretanje potrošnje vode po pojedinim kategorijama potrošača (kućanstva, privreda) na temelju podataka prikupljenih za 17 isporučitelja vodnih usluga na području Republike Hrvatske. Pritom su podjednako zastupljeni podaci za kontinentalni (ne-turistički) i primorski (turistički orijentiran) dio teritorija. Provedena je analiza potrošnje vode u 2020. godini u odnosu na prosječne vrijednosti potrošnje u prethodnom petogodišnjem periodu. Detektirane su promjene u odnosu na udio pojedine kategorije u ukupnoj potrošnji te su dani zaključci i preporuke o potrebi kritičkog sagledavanja podataka za 2020. godinu prilikom izrade projekcija u sklopu analize potreba za vodom. Na pokaznom primjeru demonstriran je i utjecaj promjena u potrošnji vode 2020. godine na definiranje opterećenja (hidrauličkog i biološkog) uređaja za pročišćavanje otpadnih voda.Alternate :In order to supress the COVID-19 global pandemics in 2020, strict measures, which limited numerous activities and movement of people at the global level, including Croatia, were introduced. The paper analyses the impact of introduced limitations on the water demand per individual consumer categories (households, economy) based on data collected for 17 water services providers in the Republic of Croatia. The data for the continental and coastal (tourism-oriented) parts of the country were equally represented. The conducted analysis looked at water consumption in 2020 in relation to average consumption values in the previous 5-year period. The changes regarding the shares of individual categories in the total consumption were detected, and conclusions and recommendations were offered in relation to the need for gaining a critical insight into the 2020 data when developing projections within the water demand analysis. An indicative example was also used as a demonstration of the impact of changes in the 2020 water consumption on the determination of (hydraulic and biological) loads on waste water treatment plants.Alternate :Im Laufe des Jahres 2020 wurden strenge Maßnahmen getroffen, die zahlreiche Aktivitäten, Tätigkeiten und Bewegungsfreiheit der Bevölkerung in der ganzen Welt und so auch in Kroatien beschränkt haben mit dem Ziel, die COVID-19-Pandemie zu bekämpfen. In diesem Beitrag wird der Einfluss der eingeführten Beschränkungen auf den Wasserverbrauch in einzelnen Verbraucherkategorien (Haushalte, Industrie) analysiert auf Grund der Angaben, die von 17 Wasserversorgern in Kroatien erhoben wurden. Dabei werden die Angaben für das kontinentale Gebiet (nicht-touristisch orientiert) und die Küste (touristisch orientiert) gleichermaßen vertreten. Die Analyse des Wasserverbrauchs im Jahre 2020 wurde in Vergleich zu den durchschnittlichen Werten im vergangenen Fünfjahreszeitraum durchgeführt. Es konnten Änderungen in Bezug auf den Anteil einzelner Kategorie im Gesamtverbrauch festgestellt werden. Die Ergebnisse und Empfehlungen für die Notwendigkeit einer kritischen Betrachtung dieser Angaben für 2020 werden angesichts der Erfassung von Projektionen im Rahmen der Wasserbedarfsanalysen gegeben. Auf einem Beispiel wird auch der Einfluss der Änderungen im Wasserverbrauch in 2020 auf die Bestimmung der hydraulischen und biologischen Belastung einer Abwasserkläranlage dargestellt.

The ethics of wastewater surveillance for public health

The COVID-19 pandemic has fuelled interest in the use of wastewater analysis for public health surveillance. Hydrologists, engineers, environmental scientists, microbiologists, public health experts and those in other disciplines have been tasked with the implementation of national-scale surveillance and the resultant data have been used for decision making at the highest levels of government. The widespread surveillance of communities is not without its concerns, however. This paper explores the ethics of surveillance drawing on the literature and our experiences with wastewater analysis. Consent is not typically required for wastewater surveillance, which can exacerbate perceptions of risk and undermine public trust. Seemingly innocuous communication of surveillance data can stigmatise communities and perpetuate inequities. There are tensions between the desire for the rapid delivery of information and the time needed to build confidence in surveillance data. There are also limitations and uncertainties in the science of wastewater surveillance, and these add to the pressures of communication for and with decision makers. Media representations can be problematic and perpetuate social stigma. On a positive note, the transdisciplinary nature of wastewater surveillance presents an opportunity to work across and beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries to address the ethics of surveillance, which, we expect, will be especially important as wastewater surveillance becomes further mainstreamed, particularly under the auspices of surveillance capitalism.

Evaluating the Use of Alternative Normalization Approaches on SARS-CoV-2 Concentrations in Wastewater: Experiences from Two Catchments in Northern Sweden

The detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA fragments in feces has paved the way for wastewater-based epidemiology to contribute to COVID-19 mitigation measures, with its use in a public health context still under development. As a way to facilitate data comparison, this paper explores the impact of using alternative normalization approaches (wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) flow, population size estimates (derived using total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP) and census data) and pepper mild mottle virus (PMMoV)) on the relationship between viral wastewater data and clinical case numbers. Influent wastewater samples were collected at two WWTPs in Luleå, northern Sweden, between January and March 2021. TN and TP were determined upon sample collection, with RNA analysis undertaken on samples after one freeze–thaw cycle. The strength of the correlation between normalization approaches and clinical cases differed between WWTPs (r ≤ 0.73 or r ≥ 0.78 at the larger WWTP and r ≤ 0.23 or r ≥ 0.43 at the smaller WWTP), indicating that the use of wastewater as an epidemiological tool is context-dependent. Depending on the normalization approach utilized, time-shifted analyses imply that wastewater data on SARS-CoV-2 RNA pre-dated a rise in clinical cases by 0–2 and 5–8 days, for the lager and smaller WWTPs, respectively. SARS-CoV-2 viral loads normalized to the population or PMMoV better reflect the number of clinical cases when comparing wastewater data between sewer catchments.

Waste Strategies Development in the Framework of Circular Economy

Cyprus (3) Greece (2) Kazakhstan (2) Australia (1) China (1) Oman (1) Palestine (1) Spain (1) Tunisia (1) United Kingdom (1) The published submissions, without limitation, are related to waste strategies management, air pollution, waste valorization, environmental impact evaluation, life cycle analysis and wastewater treatment. 2. [...]since the treaty of Rome, back in 1957, there was no common statement from the leaders to take action on environmental protection. [2] provided responses to the hypothesis that the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown scenario would advance the environmental performance in this area. [...]there are very few studies focused on the environmental dimensions in any coastal area due to the pandemic. [17] assessed the environmental, technical and economic viability of the anaerobic digestion (AD) sludge formed in a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP).

Changes in alcohol consumption associated with social distancing and self-isolation policies triggered by COVID-19 in South Australia: a wastewater analysis study.

AIM: To assess the effects of social distancing and social isolation policies triggered by COVID-19 on alcohol consumption using wastewater analysis in Adelaide, South Australia. DESIGN: Longitudinal quantitative analysis of influent wastewater data for alcohol concentration. SETTING: Adelaide, South Australia. PARTICIPANTS: Wastewater catchment area representative of 1.1 million inhabitants. MEASUREMENTS: Twenty-four hour composite influent wastewater samples were collected from four wastewater treatment plants in Adelaide, South Australia for 7 consecutive days (Wednesday-Tuesday) every 2 months from April 2016-April 2020. The alcohol metabolite ethyl sulfate was measured in samples using chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Data were population-weighted adjusted with consumption expressed as standard drinks/day/1000 people. Weekly consumption and weekend to mid-week consumption ratios were analysed to identify changes in weekday alcohol use pattern. FINDINGS: Estimated weekend alcohol consumption was significantly lower (698 standard drinks/day/1000 people) after self-isolation measures were enforced in April 2020 compared with the preceding sampling period in February 2020 (1047 standard drinks/day/1000 people), P < 0.05. Weekend to midweek consumption ratio was 12% lower than the average ratio compared with all previous sampling periods. April 2020 recorded the lowest alcohol consumption relative to April in previous years, dating back to 2016. CONCLUSIONS: Wastewater analysis suggests that introduction of social distancing and isolation policies triggered by COVID-19 in Adelaide, South Australia, was associated with a decrease in population-level weekend alcohol consumption.