Microbial Remediation of Polluted Water Bodies and Degraded Water Ecosystems

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Water Quality and Contamination".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2023) | Viewed by 3867

Special Issue Editors

Xiangya School of Public Health, Central South University, Changsha, China
Interests: water contamination; microbial degradation; pollution treatment

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Guest Editor Assistant
Biological and Environmental Engineering Research Institute, Hunan Academy of Forestry, Changsha, China
Interests: water/soil bioremediation; rhizospheric microorganism; plant endophyte; nitrogen metabolism

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Recent decades have witnessed increasing deterioration of the global aquatic environment, which has been damaged by ubiquitous contaminants that have not undergone treatment or have been incompletely reclaimed from wastewater, which accounts for half of worldwide production. Traditional contaminants and contaminants of emerging concern, despite belonging to a wide variety of natural or anthropogenic chemicals, such as agrochemicals, personal care products, industrial additives, hormones, and drugs, all pose severe threats to human health and environmental safety, whereas traditional wastewater treatment methods lack removal capacities. Notably, many microorganisms (including bacteria, archaea, fungi, protists, and metazoans) have not only shown tolerance to these toxic compounds but also driven biodegradation processes. Studies have highlighted the necessity of exploring structural, genomic, and metabolic adaptations of these extremotolerant or functional microorganisms to uncover microbial bioremediation and biotechnologies processes.

This Special Issue of Water invites you to send contributions, in the form of original research or review papers, concerning any aspects of the aforementioned water pollutants or degraded water ecosystem bioremediation using microorganisms, such as the biodegradation pathway, regulatory mechanisms, microbial stress response, and adaptation strategies.

Dr. Xian Zhang
Guest Editor

Xuan Zhang
Guest Editor Assistant

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • traditional contaminants
  • contaminants of emerging concern
  • water bioremediation
  • microbial treatment
  • aquatic microecosystem

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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16 pages, 2473 KiB  
Article
Sediment Fungal Communities of Constructed Wetlands Dominated by Zizania latifolia and Phragmites communis and Their Effect on Organic Pollutant Removal
by Yiting He, Zhongliang Huang, Hui Li, Jing Huang, Xiaoli Qin and Zijian Wu
Water 2023, 15(12), 2291; https://doi.org/10.3390/w15122291 - 19 Jun 2023
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Abstract
The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between wetland plants and fungal communities with a focus on their combined functions to remove organic pollutants. Two constructed wetland (CW) systems, covering a total area of 4.24 hm2, were established [...] Read more.
The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between wetland plants and fungal communities with a focus on their combined functions to remove organic pollutants. Two constructed wetland (CW) systems, covering a total area of 4.24 hm2, were established to treat the agricultural non-point source pollution using, respectively, Zizania latifolia (CW1) and Phragmites communis (CW2) as the dominant plant species. The obtained results showed that CW1 performed much better than CW2 in terms of promoting the abundance and diversity of the sediment fungal community identified by high-throughput sequencing technology. The enhanced fungal activity was shown to be one of the main factors that raised the pollutant removal rates and reduced the contents of the target pollutants (COD, TN, TP and NH4+-N) to levels below the stipulated national standards. Significant differences in abundant fungi were observed between the CW units and their inlet and outlet sampling sites, indicating that the plant species and pollutant concentrations were the key factors affecting the diversity and activity of the sediment fungal community. The findings of the study provided not only a better understanding of the plant–fungi symbiotic system but also useful information for the development of CW technology. Full article
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Review

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22 pages, 2345 KiB  
Review
Sequential Anaerobic/Aerobic Microbial Transformation of Chlorinated Ethenes: Use of Sustainable Approaches for Aquifer Decontamination
by Martina Bertolini, Sarah Zecchin and Lucia Cavalca
Water 2023, 15(7), 1406; https://doi.org/10.3390/w15071406 - 4 Apr 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2212
Abstract
Chlorinated ethene contamination is a worldwide relevant health issue. In anaerobic aquifers, highly chlorinated ethenes are transformed by microbially-mediated organohalide respiration metabolism. For this reason, in the last few years, bioremediation interventions have been developed and employed in situ for aquifer decontamination. Biostimulation [...] Read more.
Chlorinated ethene contamination is a worldwide relevant health issue. In anaerobic aquifers, highly chlorinated ethenes are transformed by microbially-mediated organohalide respiration metabolism. For this reason, in the last few years, bioremediation interventions have been developed and employed in situ for aquifer decontamination. Biostimulation has been demonstrated to be efficient in enhancing organohalide respiration activity. The use of agrifood wastes that replace engineered substrates as biostimulants permits the low carbon impact of bioremediation treatment as part of a circular economy approach. The present work depicts the effects of available bio-based substrates and discusses their efficiency and impact on microbial communities when applied to contaminated aquifers. As a drawback of anaerobic organohalide respiration, there is the accumulation of more toxic lower-chlorinated ethenes. However, compounds such as dichloroethene (DCE) and vinyl chloride (VC) can be mineralized by metabolic and co-metabolic pathways in aerobic conditions. For this reason, sequential anaerobic/aerobic treatments proposed to stimulate the natural biotransformation activity can achieve complete degradation of chlorinated ethenes. The aim of this work is to provide an up-to-date revision of anaerobic/aerobic microbial transformation pathways towards chlorinated ethenes and to discuss their application in real scenarios and futurable microbial bioelectrochemical systems to remediate contaminated aquifers. Full article
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