The Royal Society of Chemistry’s journal Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology has a new themed issue on wastewater surveillance.
The issue opens with an editorial entitled Wastewater surveillance for public health: Quo Vadis? It includes articles on integration of point-of-care diagnostics in SARS-CoV-2 wastewater-based epidemiology, use of wastewater surveillance for adenovirus and for carbapenem-resistant bacteria, and solid-liquid partitioning of viral pathogens including dengue, zika, west Nile, hepatitis A and influenza A viruses. Two papers concern Building-level wastewater surveillance as an early warning system for COVID-19 outbreaks, and integration of the technique with high-frequency, rapid-turnaround clinical testing within a university setting.
All papers in the collection are all Free-to-Read until 14 Oct 2025, and the theme issue is available HERE.
Some EBNet team members who were involved in the assessment of our Green Stories competition will also remember a very interesting entry on the social and political implications of wastewater surveillance. This one unfortunately didn’t make it to the final selection, but covered similar ideas from a rather different angle: we hope the author has gone on to produce more stories and wish them every success in their writing career.
Meanwhile work on advanced sensors for rapid and onsite wastewater surveillance is also showcased in a new book chapter by Prof Zhugen Yang and colleagues.
Advanced sensors enabled rapid and on-site wastewater surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 and beyond. Hui, Q., Pan, Y., Cullen, D. and Yang, Z., 2025. In Sample Handling and Trace Analysis of Pollutants (pp. 719-738). Elsevier Science.
Prof Yang, who leads EBNet’s Environmental Sensors and Wastewater Surveillance (ESWS) WG, said: “It’s an exciting area – Turning paper into a lab: making life-saving tests cheap, fast, and accessible to all, whenever they want!”.