‘Inspiring’, ‘exciting’, ‘enhancing’ and ‘enlightening’ – these were some of the words used by the first cohort of IWA’s LeaP Leadership Programme for Young Water Professionals (YWPs) about their immersive retreat in the stunning Malaysian state of Sabah, in the northern part of the island of Borneo, on 19-22 November 2024.

The retreat is the centrepiece of this new programme, which will culminate in attendance at the 2026 IWA World Water Congress & Exhibition (WWCE) in Glasgow, Scotland, UK. The group gathered in Sabah comprised: Bénigne Ishimwe Mugwaneza, Rwanda; Chotiwat (CJ) Jantarakasem, Thailand; Federick Pinongcos, USA; Igor Luketina, Austria; Laurence Strubbe, Switzerland; Linda Li, Canada; Matthew MacRorie, UK; Natalie Páez-Curtidor, Colombia; Oscar Timothy Balongo, Tanzania; Shivon Mehta, India; Yaw Abrampah, Ghana; and Yumeng Zhao, China. 

The retreat provided space in a rich environment for this diverse group of YWPs to stretch themselves, collaborate, share experiences, and challenge themselves and their ideas. With a location famed for its mountains, beaches, rainforest, coral reefs and abundant wildlife, much of which can be found in its parks and reserves, this was a retreat that fed the senses and called on the YWPs to adapt to an environment outside of their comfort zones.

Elevating the most talented

LeaP encourages a cohort of 12 exceptional YWPs to embark on a transformative journey to professional empowerment, helping them each to realise their full potential and expand their horizons. 

The programme provides successful candidates from diverse backgrounds and regions with the opportunity to forge robust professional networks and enhance their leadership skills over a 12-month period, through an immersive programme that provides a springboard for their careers and, with it, their personal and professional development. What makes this programme unique is that it’s not just about learning – it is about living the experience and empowering the individual to effect meaningful change. Fuelled by curiosity and courage, participants are advised to prepare to be challenged, rewarded and empowered as they elevate their strategic vision and leadership capabilities.

IWA is investing in the leaders of tomorrow

Supported by the Emerging Water Leaders Endowment Fund, the LeaP programme aims to nurture the leadership of high-potential YWPs by: 

• Transforming their leadership – empowering them to think and act globally 
• Building their confidence to inspire and influence others – accelerating their impact at a local, societal and global level 
• Providing the opportunity for them to learn how to adapt and thrive in ambiguous, complex and fast-changing environments
• Strengthening their foundations for future success by overcoming personal or professional barriers
• Raising their impact and visibility within IWA, with the potential to take on leadership roles in the Association over the coming years.

Providing structured learning, the programme consists of: a four-day retreat; four hours a month of preparation and project time; five hours a month in virtual learning, coaching or project team meetings; a virtual workshop in September 2025; and attendance at the 2026 WWCE.

Marking an important step in advancing IWA’s vision to build a deeply committed and connected group of future leaders, this innovative programme aims to accelerate the professional development and growth of the participating YWPs, promising to: 

• Stretch participants’ leadership skills, while helping to build a diverse group of Alumni IWA leaders, connected and engaged with IWA
• Combine inspirational thinking from specialist speakers and leadership experts, by providing deep personal learning through targeted topics, a powerful strengths diagnostic tool, and self-managed projects aided by challenge and support from facilitators, coaches and peers
• Encourage diversity of thought, perspectives, cultures and backgrounds to ensure that the richness of the group’s global and diverse experience is maximised.

This rich and aspirational programme is led by a Programme Committee made up of key IWA members, who will contribute to the programme by getting involved in the community sessions, working as project guides, and providing advice on the delivery of the programme.

Immersive retreat

The LeaP retreat in Sabah was a powerful four-day experience that combined radical self-inquiry, practical skills, shared learning, and meaningful conversations. Held at an eco-literacy campus set in 34 acres of natural beauty, the location featured a guest house providing communal living and powered by solar energy, and using rainwater harvested from its rooftops.

This unique retreat was relaxed and informal. Standing apart from more traditional IWA events, it provided a safe environment to explore ideas and support rich learning. A key focus of the event was on aligning ‘who you are’ with ‘how you lead’ while fostering space for growth and connection.

This began with participants reflecting on the profound notion that ‘change begins within ourselves’. These reflections culminated in setting clear intentions for the next 12 months of the programme. Participants explored pathways for personal and collective transformation, using tools such as the Logical Levels of Change (LLOC), a powerful framework for examining human experiences, and the Situation-Behaviour-Impact-Action (SBIA) Feedback Model.

Community-led engagement

On day two of the retreat, participants spent the day with leaders of the villages of Kg Kolosunan, Kg Babagon Toki and Kg Tampasak – three communities profoundly impacted by the construction of the Babagon Dam in the 1990s. 

The YWPs heard first hand how the dam submerged entire homes, displaced families and disrupted livelihoods. While the Babagon Dam now provides 57% of the state capital Kota Kinabalu’s clean water, these communities remain excluded from its supply, relying instead on traditional gravity-fed water systems.

However, this is also a story of resilience. These communities are now at the heart of Forever Sabah’s Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) pilot project, which champions the protection of the Babagon Watershed and the creation of a Babagon Catchment Water Fund. This initiative aims to compensate the communities for their environmental stewardship while fostering sustainable socioeconomic development.

This led to a workshop where the YWPs collaborated, constructing 3D models of communities in three different geographical realities, based on reflections and discussions around the following important questions: Who was missing from the picture, and is this a sustainable reality, or do things need to change? The exercise sparked deep discussions about inclusivity, equity, and the importance of holistic approaches to water management.

The day was filled with powerful conversations, emotional reflections, and inspiring stories of hope. It reminded all of the participants that water is about more than infrastructure – it’s about people, partnerships, and creating a future that leaves no one behind.

Reflecting on these activities, a key takeaway that resonated throughout the group was that leadership is about people. It’s about listening to their concerns, fostering resilient communities, and tackling challenges with an open mind.

The participants also explored what these insights mean for IWA YWPs and the broader IWA network, and joined in their commitment to raising awareness, sharing their learnings, and fostering change. The concept of the ‘Window of Tolerance’ sparked meaningful discussions. When challenges arise, many of us tend to panic or shut down. Mastering the ability to function within this ‘window’ is crucial for approaching difficult situations with clarity and balance.

The final day of the retreat marked the beginning of an exciting year ahead as participants embarked on collaborative projects designed to address critical water challenges and strengthen their leadership journey. The participants selected the following three themes on which to focus their projects:

• Pollution and Contamination Control
• Circular Economy in the Water Sector
• Achieving SDG 6.1 and SDG 6.2.

So, what’s next?

Over the course of the programme, participants will tap into the power of the IWA network, supported by the Programme Committee and project coaches, to make a tangible impact in the water sector.

Key features of the programme include:

• Coaching sessions enabling participants to discuss their strengths with experienced coaches and explore how these can propel their leadership journey
• Masterclasses focused on essential leadership topics, such as influencing with impact and leading in uncertain environments
• IWA Communities Insights sessions providing opportunities for engaging discussions with influential IWA members shaping both the Association and the water sector
• Mentoring sessions offering participants the chance to interact with mentors from within the IWA community, gaining valuable guidance and insights

Influencing with Impact Programme

On 16 January 2025, participants attended the first masterclass of the Influencing with Impact Programme. Expertly moderated by Sally Domingo-Jones and Henri Stevenson, from The Oxford Group, the session equipped LeaP’s YWPs with essential skills to master the art of influence.

The session began with an inspiring update from the first cohort, who reflected on their journeys since the retreat in Borneo. Building on their experiences, the discussion delved into the following key objectives:

• Identifying who and what they need to influence
• Recognising stakeholder personality preferences and needs
• Adapting their influencing style – one size does not fit all
• Developing soft skills to engage stakeholders effectively
• Applying these insights to real-world scenarios.

Participants also engaged in breakout discussions, exploring challenges to effective influencing and strategies for adapting their approach based on stakeholder personalities and their own strengths.

The ball is rolling!

Empowering the next generation of water leaders is at the heart of IWA’s mission, and this masterclass was a step towards shaping confident and impactful professionals. We wish them good luck and we look forward to seeing the development of this exciting new programme! 

More information

iwa-network.org/iwa-leap-leadership-programme

Emerging Water Leaders Endowment Fund

Announced at IWA’s World Water Congress & Exhibition (WWCE) held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2022, the Emerging Water Leaders Endowment Fund was launched with a generous donation of $1 million by former IWA President Glen Daigger and his wife, Patty. As an endowment, the fund aims to create a lasting legacy dedicated to supporting activities that bring about meaningful change in the lives of Young Water Professionals (YWPs).

The endowment fund has been invested, and the returns are being used in IWA’s new LeaP Leadership Programme. Officially started in November 2024, LeaP is supporting high-achieving YWPs – providing mentoring and leadership training – helping them to build their professional networks within the global water community. 

LeaP empowers YWPs to realise their full potential and make a greater impact on vital water issues. Through the programme, participants gain a strong foundation in leadership and management skills, which promises to help fast-track their professional development and benefit the water sector through their diverse experience and knowledge – gaining a breadth of expertise that will be critical to the achievement of the Sustainable Develop Goals (SDGs).

While LeaP is already transforming the careers of 12 YWPs from diverse backgrounds, it is critical that the endowment fund continues to thrive and grow. The fund provides an outstanding opportunity to invest in a sustainable, equitable and resilient water future. 

IWA is calling on everyone who can to consider making a donation. Whether your gift is large or small, your donation will be used to support IWA’s vision of creating a network of exceptional water professionals striving for a world in which water is wisely, sustainably and equitably managed. If you are interested in contributing to the fund, please see the IWA website www.iwa-network.org

The post LeaP – Empowering future water leaders appeared first on The Source.

More than half the world’s population live in urban areas. Many growing towns and cities, especially in the Global South, are marked by inadequate sanitation, sewage and drainage facilities. With 3.5 billion people still lacking access to safe sanitation, most national and global sanitation drives have tended to focus on toilet construction, sewer connections and hardware. These have often ignored the second and third generation challenges of sanitation concerning water contamination, poor faecal sludge management, gender, equity and sustainability.

Yet, these challenges can also be an opportunity. Human waste is rich in water, nutrients and organic compounds, but, usually, this mostly goes down the drain. The increase of extreme weather events, water shortages, and weak infrastructure mean that ‘flush and forget’ systems are not always possible or desirable in off-grid settings. This is why the project ‘Towards Brown Gold’ sought to understand the potential for reuse of faecal waste and how marginalised communities experience sanitation in five rapidly urbanising areas across four countries: Nanded and Alleppey, India; Mekelle, Ethiopia; Wa, Ghana; and Gulariya, Nepal. The research was both inter- and trans-disciplinary, seeking to integrate the social sciences, engineering, microbiology and creative arts to understand the socio-political, technical, cultural and microbial processes and contexts of sanitation and waste processes.

A springboard for progress

Northern European countries have been piloting new approaches at increasing scale. According to the Toilet Board Coalition, the sanitation crisis can enable innovation and provide resources for a trillion-dollar global industry. In India alone, the predicted market for waste recovery and reuse is as large as $9–28 billion. 

Contextual challenges

Despite this potential, the ‘Towards Brown Gold’ project found that the challenges of resource recovery from human waste might have been underestimated. The potential for reuse was found to be limited by the combined challenges of the existing sanitation infrastructure, pervasive cultural perceptions, a lack of cross-sector collaboration, and a narrative that exaggerates the benefits of the circular sanitation economy and endorses a market driven approach to sanitation.

Moreover, for reuse efforts to be successful and perceived as relevant by communities, they need to happen in a context of high sanitation coverage or come with a wider push to ensure everybody has access to sanitation. In reality, access to safely managed sanitation services was found to be lagging across the countries studied. Progress is particularly slow among groups marginalised because of their caste, class, gender and migration history. 

Sanitation progress is often hampered by insufficient resources that are skewed towards centralised sewered systems, unclear roles and responsibilities, and poor intersectoral collaboration across water, health, urban and rural development. 

Steps to success

The policy brief from the ‘Towards Brown Gold’ research project highlights six ways decision-makers can realise the potential for resource recovery from human waste and accelerate progress towards universal, safely managed sanitation in rapidly urbanising areas:

Make safely managed sanitation a political priority

National and urban level governments need to create, reform and implement policies, strategies and regulations to ensure there is sufficient funding and resources so that everybody has access to a toilet at home, and that faecal waste is managed in a way that protects public health and the environment. Acknowledgment of the global prevalence of non-sewered systems is central to the revision of policies and plans. Particular attention should be put on reaching and involving communities and residents who are poor and marginalised by society, such as those living in informal settlements.

Facilitate inclusive sanitation planning

Urban planners and policymakers need to address the multifaceted challenges of sanitation in an inclusive way, recognising the historical and social contexts of sanitation issues, and how communities who are marginalised experience sanitation. These communities’ voices and demands must be central to the planning process, and to holding authorities and service providers to account.

Protect the rights of sanitation workers

Governments need to properly recognise the crucial roles of sanitation workers – those emptying septic tanks and pits, unblocking sewers or operating treatment plants – in keeping sanitation services running and their towns and communities clean and liveable. Recognising their work includes protecting their rights to fair wages, social security, safety at work and self-organisation (such as with unions). Sanitation efforts must always include the health, safety and dignity of sanitation workers, both formal and informal.

Cautiously promote the circular sanitation economy

Reusing treated faecal waste, such as for irrigation or as compost, has positive impacts for the economy, the environment and climate change mitigation and adaptation. This circular sanitation economy can help accelerate progress, but overselling its benefits can be counterproductive, undermining the message that public investment is critical to ensure sanitation services for all. The promotion of the circular sanitation economy should instead be: realistic about the benefits and the many challenges involved; aware of community priorities; and integrated into a wider sanitation push to close any gaps in access to toilets and to address the whole sanitation service chain.

Ground reuse efforts in the context

Those designing and leading sanitation circular economy initiatives should ensure that their efforts are grounded in local, economic, social and cultural contexts. This includes considering economic aspects such as where farmers buy compost, or whether other product types could be more profitable. This should also include social aspects such as cultural perceptions of waste, or how to effectively raise awareness of the benefits of reuse. Engaging an interdisciplinary team is an effective way of doing this, combining natural and social sciences, as well as art-based approaches to community engagement.

Reform policy to enable reuse

Decision-makers need to invest in understanding and improving the enabling environment for sanitation in general, and reuse in particular. Policies and regulations should create positive incentives to reuse and eliminate existing barriers.

Overall, there is a need for policy and political reimagination to radically consider alternative models and increase financial allocations and commitments to safely managed sanitation solutions that are sustainable and inclusive for all.

More information

washmatters.wateraid.org/publications/towards-brown-gold-challenges-opportunities-reuse-universal-sanitation-urban-areas

The authors:

Lyla Mehta is a Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies and a Visiting Professor at Noragric, Norwegian University of Life Sciences; Andrés Hueso González is senior policy analyst – sanitation at WaterAid; Alan Nicol is principal researcher at the International Water Management Institute; and Ben O’Donovan-Iland is communications and impact officer at the Institute of Development Studies

The post Brown gold rush – unleashing sanitation’s rich potential appeared first on The Source.

Titled ‘Drought Impact Monitoring: Baseline Review of Practices’ and released under the banner of the Integrated Drought Management Programme (IDMP) – a joint initiative of the WMO and the Global Water Partnership (GWP) – the report presents a global overview of current drought impact monitoring practices, highlighting case studies and identifying examples of good practice and enabling environments that support effective monitoring.

The report provides operational guidelines to help countries establish or refine their drought monitoring systems and encourages cross-sector collaboration, open databases and tools to improve data accessibility, and tailored systems that can be adapted to local needs.

The post New WMO report provides global drought monitoring insights appeared first on The Source.

Since 1998, the ASCE has prepared a comprehensive assessment of the nation’s major infrastructure systems using letter grades for each category and a concise but replicable methodology to analyse all aspects of system performance.

In terms of water infrastructure, the report assesses dams (D+), drinking water (C-), inland waterways (C-), levees (D+), stormwater (D) and wastewater (D+).
This year’s report finds nearly 50% of the grades increasing for the 18 categories assessed, crediting this to recent federal investments to improve US infrastructure.
The report recommends a comprehensive agenda over the next four years to sustain investment, prioritise resilience, and advance forward-thinking policies and innovations.

The post ASCE report calls for increased investment in resilience appeared first on The Source.

The study, published in the journal Science Advances, used California as a case study, where sea levels are predicted to increase 15-37 cm by 2050.

Capturing inch by inch localised motion from space, the team analysed radar measurements from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 satellites, along with motion velocity data from ground-based receiving stations in the Global Navigation Satellite System, comparing multiple observations of the same locations from 2015 to 2023, using an interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) processing technique.

In many parts of the world land is moving down faster than the sea is rising, due to both human-caused factors such as groundwater extraction and wastewater injection, as well as from natural ones like tectonic activity.

But not all of the studied coastline is sinking. Uplift hotspots of several millimetres per year were identified in the Santa Barbara groundwater basin, for example, which has been steadily replenishing since 2018. But periods of drought and precipitation can alternately draw down or inflate underground aquifers impacting vertical land motion.

The study illustrates how challenging it is to prepare for sea level rise due to the unpredictable nature of vertical land motion, which can alter at scale and speed according to human activity, necessitating ongoing monitoring.

The post Aquifers identified as critical factor in sea level rise predictions appeared first on The Source.

For her keynote presentation at the IWA World Water Congress & Exhibition in Toronto, Canada, in August, Professor Amy Pruden, of Virginia Tech, USA, chose a title of ‘The Water Sector and the Slow Pandemic of Antimicrobial Resistance’. It is a title capturing an issue that stems from a natural ability of microbes that brings with it dire warnings.

Pruden sums up antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, as “the ability of microbes to survive antimicrobial treatments”. So, this includes resistance to antibiotics – “one very precious class of antimicrobials that treat bacterial infections”.

“How do they do this? Simply put, it’s in their DNA – their antibiotic resistance genes, or ARGs. These encode the ability of bacteria to do things like pump the antibiotic out of the cell, to break the antibiotic down, or to modify the cell target so that the antibiotic is no longer effective,” explains Pruden.

“Microbes are a lot smarter than we often give them credit for,” she continues. “They are very adept at evolution on very rapid time scales. They can also do something that we humans can’t do – they can physically share their DNA through horizontal gene transfer.” This latter point is relevant for water treatment – killing microbes may not be enough. “We also have to think about their DNA.”

A global health concern

Then come the warnings. One hundred years ago, a simple cut or bout of pneumonia was deadly, and this is not a place to which we would wish to return, comments Pruden. Noting a report in The Lancet and the 2016 UK ‘O’Neill Report’, sponsored by the Wellcome Trust and the UK Department of Health, she says: “They issue a dire warning that the slow pandemic of AMR is here. And if we don’t coordinate globally to do something about it, deaths due to AMR will surpass those due to cancer.

“On a hopeful note, there is global action taking root,” Pruden continues. One key example here is the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance, with WHO advocating for a ‘One Health’ approach. This requires all Member States to develop a national action plan for combating antimicrobial resistance. “To date, 164 of these national action plans have been published,” says Pruden.

Other examples she gives include the G7 Health Ministries. “When they met in 2022, they identified three top global public health threats: the COVID-19 pandemic, the slow pandemic of AMR, and climate change,” notes Pruden. The response, supported as part of the G7 Pact for Pandemic Readiness, included “development of integrated, interoperable and interdisciplinary surveillance”, including antimicrobial resistance. Here, Pruden points out: “They specifically call out non-invasive national wastewater surveillance systems.”

The water sector contribution

The global ‘One Health’ response to AMR requires action on multiple fronts and, on this note, Pruden highlights the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report ‘Bracing for superbugs’. This covers the state of the science, the role of antimicrobial resistance in the environment, and what can be done about it. “I’m proud to be one of the co-authors of this report,” says Pruden.

“One of the take-home consensus messages was that AMR challenges cannot be understood or addressed separately from the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity, and pollution and waste.

“The report elaborates on the role of antimicrobial resistance in the environment, particularly the water environment. So, water environments are key recipients, conduits and sources of exposure for AMR,” she adds, noting prime examples given as agricultural runoff, industrial inputs, and wastewater inputs.

“It also highlights how, if we are going to use this ‘One Health’ framework – people, animals, environment – that has been adopted by the World Health Organization, we need to get a handle on the understanding of the environmental dimensions of AMR.”

Here, Pruden highlights the relevance of wastewater. For a start, pharmaceuticals are not broken down fully in the body, so pharmaceuticals such as antibiotics are excreted into sewage. Wastewater also contains antibiotic resistant pathogens, antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs), and mobile genetic elements (MGEs) – “pieces of DNA that help ARGs move across bacterial populations”. Meanwhile, treatment processes such as activated sludge – perfected over the past 100 years – select for a particular microbial ecology. “We are concerned that this could be inadvertently creating an environment that’s ideal for selecting for antibiotic resistance, so some refer to this as a possible hot spot for the evolution of AMR.” This is a point Pruden returns to later.

Pruden highlights that the UNEP report also provides a framework for taking action around the environment and AMR, especially around the sectors that produce and use antimicrobials and the wastes they produce. “We need to think about their waste management in terms of AMR. So, do we need to focus on source control? Do we need to focus on requiring that there be pretreatment before discharge to the sewage works?” asks Pruden.

The need for monitoring

“One of the things that the water sector can do right now is help support monitoring of AMR. There are a lot of knowledge gaps in terms of the rates of resistance and where it’s coming from,” she says.

This need was noted in the 2019 launch of the Water Research Foundation (WRF) ‘Project 5052’, the findings of which were summarised in a 2022 Environmental Science & Technology paper, covering research in Switzerland, Hong Kong, India, the Philippines, Sweden, and the USA.

“We spent a good portion of the pandemic wrapping our heads around what we need to do in terms of AMR monitoring in water environments,” says Pruden. “A key takeaway is that where to monitor and what to monitor really depends on the objective of your monitoring programme.”

She points to four aspects around monitoring: monitoring antimicrobial resistant bacteria and genes circulating in human populations; quantifying what is evading treatment; quantifying removal efficiencies; and assessing evolution of new resistance pathogens and mobile ARGs.

“The first one is wastewater-based epidemiology – testing the sewage itself to get a sense of the carriage of AMR organisms in the population served. The second is to look at the effluents coming out of these plants and to see if there are any AMR constituents of clinical concern. The third is to look at the treatment processes, quantify removal rates and identify which are the most effective at attenuating AMR. Finally, the fourth is the issue of hot spots: are there places in the environment where there’s a convergence of factors, where there’s an elevated probability of resistant pathogens evolving?”

Techniques for testing

In terms of testing techniques, Pruden says: “AMR is tricky… It is a multi-headed beast. So, there’s really hundreds of strains of bacteria that can be resistant, and thousands of ARGs, so we concluded that really all the methods have value. Again, it depends on what your objectives are.”

She notes that use of cultures is always going to be of value: “It’s the one method that can confirm a viable organism.” Here, she refers to WHO’s Tricycle Protocol. Non-culture-based techniques include those built around polymerase chain reaction (PCR). “Then, most recently, a real game changer has been DNA sequencing… We can use non-targeted DNA sequencing to profile everything that’s in there and just compare with databases to see what we’re interested in.”

“Recently,  we were able to demonstrate the potential of this metagenomic DNA sequencing approach. We sent students around the world and sampled sewage from representative wastewater treatment plants. It was really remarkable how we could distinguish these sewages based on their ARG content,” says Pruden.

“What we saw was that the wastewater from Sweden had the lowest abundances of ARGs of anywhere that we tested. This makes sense because they’ve been one of the most proactive countries in terms of adopting policy to combat the spread of AMR, including banning antibiotic use in livestock since the late 1990s.

“We also saw that the highest levels of ARGs in sewage were in parts of the world that have very high population densities and that don’t require a prescription from a doctor to use antibiotics,” she adds.

“There’s a lot of potential here, not only to fill the gap in terms of clinical testing and understanding the rates of antibiotic resistance carried in human populations, but also to inform effective global policy – what works in terms of stemming the spread of antimicrobial resistance.”

Here, Pruden returns to the question of whether wastewater treatment plants are hot spots for AMR. “We went to those same wastewater treatment plants, and we sequenced the metagenomes of the activated sludge. The ARGs were sharply depleted in the activated sludge. This is quite encouraging, that wastewater treatment plants can be a barrier to the proliferation of ARGs.”

This was explored further using long-read DNA sequencing. “We concluded that the microbial ecology of activated sludge is a natural barrier to the proliferation of ARGs.”

“That’s not the full story,” adds Pruden, who says that current work is looking at which ARGs escape treatment and which are transferred horizontally. Bench-scale testing involved using blends of municipal sewage and hospital sewage, and it was possible to track increases in ARGs that related to the same classes of antibiotics increasing in the sewage. This work was published recently in Nature Communications.

The benefits of monitoring

There is a wider dimension to this wastewater monitoring. “We talk about the need for a One Health framework to combat the spread of AMR globally, but the environmental dimension of that One Health framework is really not up to speed with the level of knowledge of the others. This kind of monitoring can also help us to identify epidemiological links between the environment, humans and animals; then we can focus on those areas of transmission. We really need these large, comparable, longitudinal datasets to identify the drivers of AMR.”

Other areas include the need to inform risk assessment around regulatory limits, and to identify hot spots for the evolution and spread of AMR. “That way, we can focus our resources there, and we can identify treatment technologies that most effectively mitigate AMR,” says Pruden. There is also the potential to inform human and animal medicines regulation about which antibiotics will be most effective at population scales. Imagining doctors being able to check in real time on a mobile phone app, Pruden comments: “This last one is kind of a dream of mine.”

Picking up on the UNEP report, Pruden highlights areas where the water sector can contribute to progress, including continuing to design and operate treatment processes that produce excellent water quality. “These will surely also benefit AMR,” she says. Another is to work to identify which processes are most effective at removing antimicrobials, resistant bacteria, ARGs and mobile genetic elements (MGEs), and ones that do not increase these constituents. Another is the potential for source control, including at locations such as hospitals and pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities. Another is to look at the needs of locations currently without appropriate waste treatment. “Sadly, it is often the low- and middle-income countries that bear the burden of AMR,” adds Pruden.

She emphasises that there is a global, coordinated effort under way around AMR, so the sector is not alone. There are also wider opportunities to seek partners and co-benefits in relation to other contaminants of emerging concern.

Addressing the audience in Toronto, Pruden was also pleased to highlight that she is part of a team selected for a new US Environmental Protection Agency National Priorities grant focused on AMR. This was launched on 1 August, to be led by Lola Olabode, at the WRF. “Our focus is really going to be on filling many of these data gaps, and especially how we can inform risk assessment and move towards policy development that’s effective for combating AMR – and hopefully provide you all in the water sector with the information and tools you need to help the cause.”

More information

The ‘O’Neill Report’ – amr-review.org

UNEP report ‘Bracing for superbugs’ – www.unep.org/resources/superbugs/environmental-action

The Lancet report: ‘Global burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance in 2019: a systematic analysis’

2022 Environmental Science & Technology paper title: ‘Demonstrating a comprehensive wastewater-based surveillance approach that differentiates globally sourced resistomes’

Nature Communications report title: ‘Selection and horizontal gene transfer underlie microdiversity-level heterogeneity in resistance gene fate during wastewater treatment’

US EPA National Priorities project: ‘Quantifying wastewater sources of antibiotic resistance to aquatic and soil environments and associated health risks’

2022 Microbiome paper ‘Long-read metagenomic sequencing reveals shifts in associations of antibiotic resistance genes with mobile genetic elements from sewage to activated sludge’,

doi.org/10.1186/s40168-021-01216-5

The post Advancing action on AMR appeared first on The Source.

You cannot buy happiness, but you can come to Fiji, and that’s pretty much the same thing. Most visitors to Fiji would testify that this Fiji Tourism tagline is as close to reality as it gets. Fiji is a Small Island Developing State (SIDS) in the South Pacific and one of the newest Governing Members of IWA. With a rich cultural heritage, beautiful landscapes and vibrant biodiversity, Fiji is a key hub for trade and tourism in the region.

As climate change intensifies in the Pacific, climate vulnerability of water systems under extreme weather events and rising sea levels is now endangering key water infrastructure, necessitating substantial investment in protective measures. SIDS in the Pacific are home to about 2.5 million people, living on hundreds of islands spread over the vast Pacific Ocean. The region covers nearly 15% of the Earth’s surface, with shared water security challenges and solutions.

When it comes to climate change, it is worth pointing out that, collectively, the Pacific SIDS contribute less than 1% of global emissions. However, when it comes to the impact of climate change, the Pacific is the Ground Zero in terms of the brunt of its potential impact.

Benchmarking data collected by the Pacific Water and Wastewater Association (a body representing water utilities from 21 countries of the Pacific) indicate high levels of non-revenue water (NRW) because of ageing infrastructure across the Pacific. In Fiji, an estimated 47% of water is lost to leaks and bursts in the water pipe network.

Strategic pillars

The Water Authority of Fiji (WAF) has unveiled an ambitious plan – the Water Sector Strategy 2050. This forward-looking $8.5 billion investment programme (over 27 years) aims to secure a sustainable and resilient future for Fiji’s water resources, ensuring every Fijian has access to clean and reliable water services. The Strategy is a direct outcome of the country’s first-ever national-level collective planning exercise that united stakeholders, from the public sector, private sector, tourism industry, NGOs, academia, development partners, and citizens. The document is not just a list of priority projects and investments; it is a shared vision for the water and sanitation future of Fiji.

As outlined in Figure 1, the Water Sector Strategy 2050 is built on five strategic pillars that provide a comprehensive approach to addressing water-related challenges. These strategic pillars ensure that the Strategy responds to climate vulnerability, focuses on renewing ageing infrastructure, contributes to the circular economy, enhances the natural environment, and builds on the long-term financial viability of the water sector itself.

Response strategies

• Tackling the challenge of non-revenue water (NRW)

The high level of NRW continues to be a significant challenge for the Water Authority of Fiji. WAF’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr Amit Chanan, explains: “Our pipe network is roughly 5,000 km, making it a significant challenge to identify and fix leaks. And that is why we are working with world-leading experts in NRW – who have the right expertise – to help us with this and build the capacity of our staff.”

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has reaffirmed its commitment to assist WAF in reducing NRW. Neeta Pokhrel, ADB Director to the Pacific, highlighted the ADB’s ongoing support, saying: “We are proud partners of the Water Authority of Fiji. We supported the Viria water treatment plant – one of the biggest water infrastructure projects built in Fiji in recent times. The next WAF project we are supporting is focused on reducing non-revenue water.”

In late September 2024, a performance based contract was awarded to Miya (a global efficiency-oriented water operator) for a water loss reduction project in the Suva-Nausori Region – home to the country’s capital city – and WAF’s flagship response strategy to address high NRW. A key feature of this five-year programme includes capacity building for WAF staff, who will be trained in best-practice water loss reduction.

• Focus on wastewater treatment upgrades

On the sanitation front, the Water Sector Strategy 2050 gives priority to wastewater management – prioritising the lion’s share of investment for improving wastewater treatment and access to safe sanitation.

A total of $5 billion is earmarked for wastewater management, with several high-priority projects identified. The Kinoya Wastewater Treatment Plant Upgrade is the first priority project, and aims to enhance capacity and efficiency, ensuring improved wastewater management for Suva. This project is vital for protecting the environment and public health, while supporting the region’s sustainable development. The ADB and the European Investment Bank (EIB) are supporting WAF with design development works that are already under way for the multi-million-dollar upgrade to the biggest wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in the country.

In addition to Kinoya, the decentralised wastewater management strategy for Greater Suva will see limitations on wastewater volume currently being pumped over long distances to the Kinoya WWTP, with plans for two additional treatment plants to be built in the Lami and Nausori areas. The strategy will also address the backlog of sewerage works and upgrades to the wastewater network around Kinoya. Tenders for construction works for the Kinoya WWTP upgrade are planned to be called by mid-2025.

• Strengthening financial viability

A financially viable WAF will be critical to the delivery of the Water Sector Strategy 2050. Therefore, a financial model that reduces dependency on public sector grants is one of the key strategic pillars of the Strategy. With assistance from the ADB, Fiji’s Competition and Consumer Commission has recently commenced a tariff review for water services.

If implemented, these tariff reforms have the capacity to strengthen the water sector’s financial viability. It is also expected to enhance WAF’s operational efficiency, ensuring sustainable and reliable water services for all Fijians. Fiji’s Water Sector Strategy 2050 is a bold and timely step towards a secure water future. By focusing on climate resilience, infrastructure health, sustainable development and community engagement, Fiji is setting an example for SIDS across the Pacific and globally. The Strategy underscores the importance of global collaboration and peer-to-peer learning in addressing water challenges. Many IWA members – both individuals and organisations – have been invaluable international partners who have supported the WAF team in developing the Water Sector Strategy 2050, and have been key in shaping a resilient and sustainable water future for Fiji.

The authors:

Juliet Korovou and Peni M Shute are from the Communications & Stakeholder Engagement Department of the Water Authority of Fiji (WAF)

The post Fiji’s Water Sector Strategy 2050 appeared first on The Source.

The day was structured into three sessions, covering industry best practices, collaboration with regulators and research institutes, and strategies to overcome long returns on investments in water technologies. A common theme emerged: the critical importance of collaboration across sectors to address current and future water challenges.

Innovation in industrial water management

Several innovative technologies and approaches were highlighted during the forum, demonstrating the potential for significant improvements in industrial water efficiency:

PFAS remediation: Dr Mohamed Ateia Ibrahim, from Rice University, USA, emphasised that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for PFAS remediation. With more than 10,000 chemicals containing PFAS on the market, new technologies are being explored to meet increasingly stringent regulations. The path forward requires collaboration between academia, start-ups, solution providers, and end-users to develop effective strategies for addressing current issues and transitioning to fluorine-free alternatives.

Energy conservation in cooling systems: Alain Silverwood, from Xylem, presented a two-year study on the energy impact of microsand filtration in open cooling water systems. The collaborative effort between academia, solution providers and end-users demonstrated that proper filtration could reduce biofilms and energy consumption by up to 13%, resulting in significant cost savings for industrial facilities.

Resource recovery from waste streams:

Dr Christopher Lawson, from the University of Toronto, Canada, shared insights into a new technology that ‘retools’ anaerobic digestion for waste-to-chemical biomanufacturing. This innovative approach converts food waste into medium chain fatty acids, potentially reducing carbon footprints by recycling chemicals and materials.

Collaboration: The key to success

The forum emphasised that collaboration is crucial for addressing water challenges effectively. This was evident in the organising committee itself, which included representatives from Xylem, Veolia and Grundfos. Throughout the sessions, speakers highlighted successful partnerships between industry, academia and regulatory bodies.

Industry-academia partnerships: The cooling water filtration study and the waste-to-chemical biomanufacturing project both demonstrated the value of collaboration between universities and industry partners. These partnerships allow for rigorous scientific research to be applied to real-world industrial challenges.

Regulatory collaboration: Mohamed Ateia Ibrahim’s presentation on PFAS remediation highlighted the need for cooperation between regulators, researchers and industry, to develop effective solutions that meet increasingly stringent environmental standards.

Cross-sector initiatives: Jason Morrison, President of the Pacific Institute and Head of the UN Global Compact CEO Water Mandate, discussed engagement opportunities that bring together corporate leaders to address water management challenges collectively.

Overcoming barriers to innovation

The forum also addressed the challenges of implementing new water technologies, particularly regarding the ‘valleys of death’ that can occur when transferring solutions from research to industry. The panel discussion in the third session explored strategies to overcome these barriers:

Technology readiness levels: Panellists discussed the importance of understanding and supporting the various stages of technology development, from basic research (Level 1) to successful application (Level 9).

Funding and guidance: Seth Darling, from Argonne National Laboratory, USA, explained how national laboratories provide crucial support to help researchers scale up their investigations.

Regulatory incentives: Regulatory agencies play a role in encouraging technology development by identifying critical water quality issues and promoting energy reduction and resource recovery.

Corporate leadership: The CEO Water Mandate provides a platform for corporate decision-makers to collaborate on finding innovative water management solutions.

Industry investment: Representatives from Veolia, Grundfos and Dow Chemical shared examples of how their companies invest in, and refine, new water treatment technologies for their clients.

The future outlook

The Industrial Water Forum highlighted the growing pressure to accelerate the development and implementation of water-efficient technologies. Despite the challenges, participants expressed optimism about future breakthroughs in industrial water management. Key areas for future focus include:

• Continued development of PFAS remediation technologies and alternatives to ‘forever chemicals’.
• Further exploration of energy-saving technologies in industrial water systems.
• Advancement of resource recovery techniques from waste streams.
• Expansion of nature-based solutions for industrial water management.
• Improved communication and collaboration between researchers, technology developers, regulators, and end-users to streamline the innovation process.

Conclusion

The Industrial Water Forum served as a vital platform for knowledge sharing and collaboration in the face of growing water challenges. By bringing together diverse stakeholders, the event fostered discussions on cutting-edge technologies, best practices, and strategies for overcoming barriers to innovation. As industrial water use continues to increase globally, the insights and connections made during this forum will play a crucial role in shaping a more sustainable and water-efficient industrial future.

Moving forward, continued collaboration across sectors will be essential to drive innovation, overcome implementation challenges, and achieve significant improvements in industrial water efficiency. By building on the momentum generated at this forum, stakeholders in the industrial water sector can work together to develop and implement solutions that address current and future water challenges, ensuring a more sustainable and resilient future for industry and the environment alike.

The authors: Lærke Nørgaard Madsen is a water treatment application specialist at Grundfos; Michael Skovgaard is Business Development Regional Director, Americas, at Grundfos; Walt Kozlowski is Senior Director Industrial Sustainability Solutions at Xylem; and Youngseck Hong is Principal Engineer at Veolia Water Technologies & Solutions

The post Industrial Water Forum 2024 Innovations and collaborations for a sustainable future appeared first on The Source.

‘Engineering resilience’. The phrase was coined by an ecologist to signal something inferior, something not wanted — the constancy of timber production from forests or of cattle grazing on grasslands.

Such human-focused manipulations of natural ecosystems smacked of what engineers were thought to be all about: achieving the immovable staying-putness of civil engineering assets; and the pursuit of disturbance suppression in control engineering. Superior forms of resilience were to be found in the systems of ecology and social anthropology. So the challenge in making cities resilient is to examine how such ‘good things’ — in ecosystems, evolutionary biology, social systems, in business — might be imported to beneficial effect into urban engineering.

What is to be so admired about the resilience of ecosystems? The forest that bounces back and regenerates itself after the devastation and destruction of fire. And the way the forest does this, through its resilience, is something that has co-evolved with the spectrum of disturbances and changes to which the forest has been subjected over millennia and centuries — climate and meteorology above, geology, bedrock, and soils below. Fish assemblages in rivers and lakes reflect likewise the pounding and pulsating disturbances, or relative invariance, of the hydrology to which they have been and are subject. In stark contrast, water professionals typically design urban assets that minimize displacement (and maximize the comfort of citizens). The hallmarks are constancy and order.

Material, physical assets are exemplified by flood walls, dams, the concrete and the steel of wastewater treatment plants. The historical result is the flood-resistant city: the massive capacity of urban engineering for ‘disturbance rejection’. Future forms of electricity grid systems, say engineers, boil down to choices along the resilience-efficiency continuum; more efficiency, less resilience, and vice versa. The trouble is, our deeply ingrained technocratic instincts, coupled with lowest-cost bidding regimes, will drive urban assets towards high efficiency and almost no resilience. So what’s to be done? Let me start from the perspective of business.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, famous for his bestseller Black Swans, has much to offer engineers, but from his later, less well known book Antifragile. Things that Gain from Disorder. Avoiding exposure to shocks makes us brittle and ‘fragile’, he argues, while exposure to random disturbances increases health and vigour. For example, stress fractures heal into stronger bones; exertion tears and thus strengthens muscles. This works… up to a point.

So for cities, how about allowing modest floods in — even welcoming them … up to a point — as opportunities for learning, for forearming the city and its water infrastructure, hence coping all the better with the ‘big one’, when it comes, as it will. Taleb would accuse us urban engineers and technocrats of being undesirable ‘fragilizing agents’. We are making cities brittle and vulnerable in the name of efficiency, and hoodwinking citizens into presuming they live in a drought-proof, flood-free (risk-free) metropolis. Systems ecologist H-K Liao would agree.

She has been working with the planning department of King County, Washington, to come up with a comprehensive blueprint, not for a floodresistant but for a flood-resilient city of Kent. In the city’s human environment, citizens become re-acquainted with flood-risk and governance for mobilising this revitalised awareness. In its renatured environment, salmon fry will benefit from re-created flood refugia. But what can disorder do for the city’s built environment? After all, how can bricks and mortar learn, adapt to, or co-evolve with contingencies and disturbances? Despite the emerging practicality of self-healing concrete, a better question to ask is this. Could smart, intelligent built assets be empowered to take care of themselves? It is time to borrow something from anthropology. Imagine not just the single urban engineering asset so empowered to look after itself but the resulting potential for socialising a community of smart assets to take care of their city.

As smart buildings become ever more human agent-like, each asset could acquire the capacity to exercise fragilising agency within the city system. But of course, we would much prefer them all to exercise anti-fragilising agency. There is something in a certain school of social anthropology called ‘clumsiness’.

It is pointedly meant to stand for everything that is not the much cherished ‘elegance’ of the customary technocratic problemsolving, which so favours efficiency. It heralds communities taking care of their affairs in a way that refurbishes and invigorates pluralist democracy. More than these things, clumsiness is to social anthropology what resilience is to ecology and anti-fragilising agency to Taleb. Clusters of intelligent buildings.

in a resilient community of smart urban infrastructure assets should be negotiating with each other on how they discharge their functions, in much the same way as its citizens ought ideally to do — just as clumsily — in a refurbished urban pluralist democracy. Last, in my borrowing of insights, let me touch upon something from evolutionary biology. It is something ecologists point to as integral to ecosystems achieving high resilience: soft overlapping redundancy in the structure of an ecosystem. Warmblooded endotherms like ourselves have been stunningly successful (in evolutionary terms) thanks to a plurality of duplicative cooling mechanisms in the body.

No single mechanism functions all that efficiently but collectively they enable our species to live and thrive at the ‘edge of chaos’ with a body temperature perilously close to that which is lethal. Thus, redundancies and inefficiencies of multiple, overlapping cooling mechanisms bestow great resilience on the system, acutely alert to goings-on in its environment and ready to ‘seize the moment’. So now consider this. Truly smart buildings are prosumers.

They produce and consume electricity and they could also consume and produce nutrient resources, like carbon for biofuel production or nitrogen and phosphorus for fertilizer production. For example, a single building might have urineseparating toilets in each household, with subsequent on-site recovery of nitrogen-based fertilizer. Others might have more conventional forms of wet sanitation (not source-separated), with centralised wastewater treatment for the cluster of buildings, from which granulated slow-release phosphorus fertilizer may be recovered.

The technical means of nutrient recovery might vary along the spectrum, from self-organising, general-purpose ecosystems to specific, inherently unstable microbial ecosystems, whose self-organising nature is being deliberately disrupted and re-stabilised only by exquisitely tight operational control at the edge of chaos, in order to achieve fertilizer recovery from urine. In sum, the community of smart buildings and their occupants become resilient to the extent that their functions (production of water, electricity, fertilizer, or fuel) are replicated both within and across scales, from individual households to entire clusters of large buildings.

And much as a mouse and a moose replicate each other’s functions of seed and nutrient renewal/dispersal, hence to make a wetland resilient, so diverse scale in smart buildings means also diverse speeds and types of operational response, among the diverse sizes and shapes of the parts, to one and the same disturbance. But why should we always focus on the downside of disturbance? What about seizing the moment, to grasp the upside windfall opportunity? Imagine not only the heat-wave in the city, but also all those smart buildings requesting that their occupants eat especially nutrientrich foods, so that the buildings and their systems can make the most of producing algal-derived biofuels while the sun shines so intensely.

Beck is a Visiting Professor at Imperial College London, UK, and Senior Research Scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). He led the Sustainability Specialist Group from its inception in 2006 until 2014.

The post Bring on the floods: how water professionals can help make cities resilient appeared first on The Source.

The application and testing of the framework will be done in cooperation with an advisory group composed of members of the World Bank, the University of Massachusetts, the 100 Resilient Cities network and Arup.

“[Water] hasn’t been previously addressed as an underpinning element of a broader concept of urban growth, sustainability and resilience,” Dr Fred Boltz, CWRF Steering Group Chair, University of Massachusetts Amherst, told The Source. “I think this project is really groundbreaking in taking that comprehensive holistic approach to understanding water and informing smart development, related to the changing availability of that vital resource.”

Boltz noticed that traditional water challenges, such as unplanned and unstructured urbanisation, ageing infrastructure and inadequate governance of water systems are being compounded by environmental degradation of fresh water ecosystems and climate change.

In order to prepare cities for the water management challenges, the project will consider all elements of the water cycle, and account for changeability and periodic extremes in water related events to approach urban resilience.

The core elements of the framework are universal but can be adapted to particular characteristics of individual cities, and include:

• Infrastructure and ecosystems
• Economic benefits and social integrity
• Health and wellbeing
• Governance and strategy.

“The project is now in its research and development phase,” said Boltz. “We will be partnering with five cities through 2018 to test the framework in distinct and diverse settings, thereby ensuring its general applicability and our ability to tailor it to specific quality and demands.”

The five cities are expected to be announced early this year. Once the diagnostic and plans to support the cities are developed, the project will move to implementation phase.

The post Five cities to test new water resilience framework appeared first on The Source.