Sustainable Desalination and Wastewater Treatment: A Way Forward for Water, Energy, and Environment Security Nexus

Dear Colleagues,

Unprecedented population growth, urbanization, industrialization, and climate change have accelerated the global water and energy crisis. The World Economic Forum ranked water crises among the highest global risks in terms of impact and likelihood. At present, one-third of the world's population is experiencing a freshwater supply shortage. The World Health Organization projects that half of the world's population will live in water-stressed areas by 2050. More than 2 billion people use a drinking water source contaminated with feces. Poor water quality in water shortage areas is responsible for more than 90% of all diseases and one-third of deaths (approximately 3 million deaths each year worldwide). Parallel to that, the limited water availability is also raising a food crisis, while the utilization of unsafe wastewater for irrigation and its discharge into the freshwater bodies is worrisome.

To address the growing scarcities and concerns, desalination and wastewater reuse are feasible alternatives for securing freshwater supply and recovering valuable resources. Although these alternatives can supply nearly limitless water/resources, they have drawbacks. For example, desalination/wastewater treatment processes are energy and cost-intensive, pose potential human health concerns, produce byproducts that must be managed, and harm marine ecosystems. The massive amounts of greenhouse gases emitted in the process of generating the required energy for desalination/wastewater treatment are another major issue. Brine and sludge discharge from desalination and wastewater treatment plants, intake and outfall infrastructures, and their marine life disruption, topped with an array of intertwined sociopolitical impacts, are detrimental to the process's sustainability.

This Special Issue of Sustainability aims to allow researchers to exchange their novel ideas, technical innovations, and research outcomes related to the design, analysis, and development of novel desalination and wastewater treatment technologies and present the impacts on sustainable development. We are soliciting the researchers to contribute high-quality original research papers and critical review articles on specific themes that comprise the development of sustainable water & wastewater research. Specific topics include, but are not limited to the following:

• Renewable energy-powered desalination and wastewater treatment systems.
• Water-energy-environment nexus.
• Integrated/hybrid approaches for simultaneous water, energy, and resource recovery.
• Advanced membrane-based, physicochemical, and biological processes.
• Pre-treatment/post-treatment approaches for sustainable operation.
• Socioeconomic and political aspects for system implementation and adaptability.
• Integrated zero liquid discharge systems/designs.
• Life cycle assessment for environmental impacts of the treatment processes.
• Cost-benefit analysis and feasibility studies.
• Novel (antifouling, anti-wetting, self-cleaning, photocatalytic, nanocomposite, etc.) membranes in rendering feasible solutions for sustainable desalination/wastewater treatment.
• Removal, degradation, and detection methods for emerging contaminants and trace organics.
• Emergence, occurrence, and removal of microplastics from wastewater.
• Modeling and simulation studies on emerging contaminants removal/degradation mechanism.
• Anaerobic digestion technologies for biofuels production.
• Advanced disinfection technologies.
• Other topics of interest in the field.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Jehad A. Kharraz
Dr. Bhaskar Jyoti Deka
Dr. Noman Khalid Khanzada
Guest Editors

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