The role of treatment processes in achieving drinking water biostability

Research Challenge:
The central research challenge is to improve efficiency of measuring Assimilable Organic Carbon (AOC) in drinking water. This is crucial for several reasons. First, an accurate understanding of AOC levels provides insight into bacterial regrowth potential of drinking water, with implications for safety, infrastructure maintenance, and customer satisfaction. Existing methods to measure AOC are complex, time-consuming, and current proxy measurements are limited in their applicability across diverse water treatment methods.

What Don't We Know:
Currently, it is unclear whether the reported proxies for AOC measurement maintain their accuracy across various treatment trains. Furthermore, the specific physicochemical mechanisms affecting these proxy measurements are not fully understood.

Methodology:
-Conduct a comprehensive traditional literature review to establish a foundational understanding of the current state of AOC measurement and available proxies.
-Experimentally compare proposed AOC proxy parameters with traditional methods to determine their limitations.
-Investigate the physicochemical changes in AOC through oxidative treatment.
-Test various coagulants to understand their effectiveness in reducing AOC levels and to identify potential proxies for AOC precursors.

Impact:
This project aims to create more efficient methods for AOC measurement, thereby enabling water utilities, both in the UK and internationally, to better monitor and mitigate bacterial regrowth challenges. The outcome will equip decision-makers and practitioners with more timely and accessible tools for infrastructure management and water quality assurance. Given the increasing demand for water and the complications introduced by climate change, this research holds significant global implications for the resiliency of water systems and public health.

Water-WISER will train a cohort of 50 British research engineers and scientists and equip them to work in challenging environments both in the low-income settings of rapidly growing poor cities and in the changing urban environment of the UK, Europe and other regions with a historic endowment of aging infrastructure. The vision is for a generation of engineers with the skills to deliver the trans-disciplinary innovations needed to ensure that future water, waste and sanitation infrastructure is resilient to the stresses posed by rapid urbanisation, global climate change and increasingly extreme natural and man-made disasters. Our alumni will address the urgent need to re-imagine urban spaces as net contributors to ecological and environmental well-being rather than being net users of vital resources such as energy, nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon. These new leaders will be an essential resource if the UK is to deliver on its commitment to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 6 which calls for universal access to safely managed water and sanitation services, within planetary and local ecological boundaries. This next generation of research engineers will enable UK-based engineering consultancies, manufacturers, and utility companies to grow their share of the expanding global market for water and waste services, for example; in the water services industry from 3% to 10% (an increase of £33 billion per annum) by 2030, and attract significant inward investment.
The research which Water-WISER cohorts enable will form the basis of new innovations in the design and delivery of resilient infrastructure and services. Innovations developed by Water-WISER graduates will inform how growing cities are designed and built in the global south and will be used to inform the re-engineering and replacement of the aging infrastructure on which the UK's water and waste services are currently reliant. Our alumni will form the new generation of leaders who will play a central role in securing a larger share of the international water and waste management consultancy market to UK consultancies. The network of expertise and skills created by Water-WISER will enhance potential for collaborations between major UK players (for example strengthening links between UK consultancy, the Department for International Development, and leading UK water agencies such as WaterAid and Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor) and between UK companies and partners in the global south including international investors such as the World Bank, European Investment Bank, African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation. Graduates of Water-WISER will enter industry, academia and development agencies having spent a substantial period (minimum of six months) embedded in an industry or development partner organisation delivering their field-based research. Water-WISER students will thus gain a unique combination of trans-disciplinary training, field experience and cohort networking; they are destined for leadership roles in UK and international engineering and development consultancies, academia, international development banks, international agencies such as the United Nations and international non-governmental organisations.