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Environments
Special Issues
Wastewater-Based Epidemiology Assessment and Surveillance
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Wastewater-Based Epidemiology Assessment and Surveillance

A special issue of Environments (ISSN 2076-3298).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 January 2026 | Viewed by 1033

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Zhenyu Wu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ 86011, USA
Interests: bioinformatics; wastewater-based epidemiology; biomarker detection
Dr. Zacharias Frontistis

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Western Macedonia, 50100 Kozani, Greece
Interests: water and wastewater treatment; advanced oxidation processes (AOPs); physicochemical processes; photocatalysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Qiuda Zheng

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences (QAEHS), The University of Queensland, 20 Cornwall Street, Woolloongabba, QLD 4102, Australia
Interests: wastewater analysis; LC-MS/MS; method uncertainties
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has revolutionized public health surveillance by enabling non-invasive, cost-effective monitoring of population-level health trends through wastewater analysis. This Special Issue aims to highlight cutting-edge research and innovations in WBE methodologies, applications, and policy implications. We seek contributions addressing the development of sensitive biomarker detection techniques (e.g., pathogens, pharmaceuticals, and antimicrobial resistance markers), advancements in data normalization and modeling to account for environmental variability, and the integration of WBE with digital epidemiology tools.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Pathogen surveillance (e.g., SARS-CoV-2, emerging viruses, and antimicrobial resistance genes);
  • Community exposure assessment for illicit drugs, pharmaceuticals, and environmental toxins;
  • Technological innovations in sample collection, high-throughput sequencing, and real-time monitoring;
  • Ethical and governance frameworks for data privacy and public health decision-making;
  • Case studies demonstrating WBE’s role in pandemic response, environmental justice, and One Health initiatives.

This Special Issue welcomes interdisciplinary perspectives from environmental science, epidemiology, data science, and public policy, fostering a holistic understanding of WBE’s potential to transform global health surveillance in diverse settings.

Dr. Zhenyu Wu
Dr. Zacharias Frontistis
Dr. Qiuda Zheng
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Environments is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE)
  • pathogen surveillance
  • biomarker detection
  • antimicrobial resistance
  • public health policy
  • environmental monitoring
  • data modeling
  • community health
  • One Health
  • pandemic preparedness

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 4870 KB  
Article
Wastewater-Based Detection of a Rare SARS-CoV-2 Variant in a Hospital Setting: Implications for Individual-Level Resolution
by Jeffrey L. Ram, Md Alamin, Azadeh Bahmani, Lance Gable, Sneha Ghosh, Katherine Gurdziel, James Hartrick, Natasha Islam, Paul E. Kilgore, Anthony T. Lagina III, Michael Mossing, Armin Namayandeh, Pelumi M. Oladipo, Natalie Ram, Rola Raychouni, William Shuster, Geehan Suleyman, Carrie L. Turner, Benjamin Wasinski, Thameena Yusuf, Marcus Zervos, Xiangmin Zhang and Wanqing Liuadd Show full author list remove Hide full author list
Environments 2025, 12(12), 496; https://doi.org/10.3390/environments12120496 - 17 Dec 2025
Abstract
Wastewater-based surveillance is an effective method to monitor community health by detecting pathogens excreted from large populations. Traditionally, wastewater analyses are considered privacy-preserving since samples are pooled. However, advances in molecular resolution may challenge this assumption. This study investigated whether a rare SARS-CoV-2 [...] Read more.
Wastewater-based surveillance is an effective method to monitor community health by detecting pathogens excreted from large populations. Traditionally, wastewater analyses are considered privacy-preserving since samples are pooled. However, advances in molecular resolution may challenge this assumption. This study investigated whether a rare SARS-CoV-2 variant detected in a hospital sewershed could be linked to a specific patient. During 2023, wastewater samples were collected weekly and analyzed for SARS-CoV-2 concentrations and variant composition using droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) and tiled sequencing. During the same period, nasal swab samples from hospital patients were sequenced for comparison. While wastewater was dominated by Omicron lineages, several weeks showed a sharp increase in SARS-CoV-2 concentrations, with over 80% belonging to the Delta lineage AY.25—rare globally since 2022. Nasal swab sequencing identified one patient carrying AY.25, whose admission and discharge coincided with the emergence and disappearance of AY.25 in the hospital’s wastewater. The temporal pattern and sequence similarity suggest that the Delta signal might have originated from this single patient, with sequence differences potentially reflecting intrahost divergence. These findings indicate that, under certain conditions, wastewater signals can be attributed to individuals, highlighting the need to keep in mind the ethical considerations surrounding privacy and data use while benefiting the community through wastewater surveillance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wastewater-Based Epidemiology Assessment and Surveillance)
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16 pages, 3228 KB  
Article
Identification and Application of Phocaeicola-Specific Conserved Signature DNA Markers for Human Fecal Source Tracking
by Enze Li, Faizan Saleem, Sarah Bello, Thomas A. Edge, Radhey S. Gupta and Herb E. Schellhorn
Environments 2025, 12(12), 495; https://doi.org/10.3390/environments12120495 - 17 Dec 2025
Abstract
A major goal of fecal pollution monitoring in the environment is to identify point sources of fecal contamination that may pose potential health risks due to animal- and human-specific pathogens. Ideal source tracking markers should have high host specificity and can be employed [...] Read more.
A major goal of fecal pollution monitoring in the environment is to identify point sources of fecal contamination that may pose potential health risks due to animal- and human-specific pathogens. Ideal source tracking markers should have high host specificity and can be employed for the unambiguous identification of the host/fecal point sources. Conserved signature proteins (CSPs) are a class of unique, phylogenetically coherent indicators that are specific to a given taxon (e.g., genus or species). In this study, we report the identification and characterization of a new CSP, whose gene (designated as CSP-DV) is present in a single copy, and for whom homologs showing a high degree of sequence similarity are found only in genomes of Phocaeicola dorei and Phocaeicola vulgatus, two commensal species commonly found in the human gut and feces. We developed a qPCR method targeting this CSP gene to explore its usefulness as a human source tracking marker. We confirmed that the CSP-DV marker showed an absolute human sensitivity (100%) but some cross-reactivities in chicken, cats, dogs, rabbits, and rodents. In recreational water, the CSP-DV marker gene levels were well correlated with those of HF183, a well-validated human marker that predominantly targets the 16S rRNA gene of P. dorei, suggesting that it can be a new potential source tracking tool for human fecal contamination in specific environmental waters. In summary, our CSP-DV marker targets Phocaeicola clade-specific microbes and can provide an additional approach independent of the 16S rRNA gene to detect human sources of fecal pollution. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wastewater-Based Epidemiology Assessment and Surveillance)
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21 pages, 19490 KB  
Article
Wastewater-Based Estimation of COVID-19 Transmission in California: A Hierarchical Beta-Binomial Model for Estimating the Effective Reproduction Number
by José Cricelio Montesinos-López, Maria L. Daza-Torres, Abelardo Montesinos-López, Junlin Chen, Heather N. Bischel and Miriam Nuño
Environments 2025, 12(12), 475; https://doi.org/10.3390/environments12120475 - 5 Dec 2025
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Abstract
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic highlighted the critical need for scalable, timely, and unbiased methods to monitor disease transmission at the population level. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) provides an effective method for monitoring severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission by detecting [...] Read more.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic highlighted the critical need for scalable, timely, and unbiased methods to monitor disease transmission at the population level. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) provides an effective method for monitoring severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission by detecting viral RNA shed into the sewage system. Because it does not rely on individual testing, WBE can offer timely, cost-effective, and community-level insights into infection trends. In this study, we present a hierarchical Beta-Binomial model that integrates SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentration in wastewater with reported COVID-19 case counts to enhance the monitoring of community-level transmission dynamics. The model incorporates wastewater viral loads as a predictor and reported cases as the response, while adjusting for testing volume to account for biases introduced by fluctuations in testing practices. This approach enables reliable estimation of the effective reproduction number (Rt), even in the absence of consistent reporting of clinical data. Applied to twenty counties in California, our modeling framework demonstrates the potential of wastewater surveillance to inform public health decision making, particularly in locations with sparse clinical data. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wastewater-Based Epidemiology Assessment and Surveillance)
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