Water Quality and Its Interlinkages with the Sustainable Development Goals

Dear Colleagues,

Good water quality is an important factor for both human wellbeing and good status of ecological systems. It is a prerequisite for drinking water, cooking water, hygienic water uses, and industrial water uses; it makes a vital contribution to ecosystem services including subsistence, commercial and recreational fishing; it ensures the safe use of surface waters for recreational purposes, hygiene, and household activities.

Water quality’s ubiquitous role in society and nature makes it a key factor in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and in various important trade-offs and synergies among the goals and their underlying targets. Poor water quality undermines the health and life changes of children, women and vulnerable social groups. As a further example, if bioenergy cropping is expanded to achieve the energy goal, then it is likely that nutrient and pesticide runoff from cropland would increase and polluted surface waters which could flow into coastal zones and make it more difficult to achieve the goal concerned with ocean conservation. Hence degrading water quality would cause a trade-off between the goals for clean energy and clean water. But other actions would lead to beneficial synergies between water quality and SDGs. For example, reducing the use of toxic household cleaning products helps to achieve the responsible consumption goal, as well as the clean water goal.

The aim of this Special Issue is to collect research results on interactions, both trade-offs and synergies, between water quality and the SDGs. It is strongly believed that these studies collectively provide a strong evidence base for cross-sectoral actions that can advance both the water quality target and other targets at the same time. They can also help steer water quality research and monitoring that simultaneously supports the water quality target and other SDG targets. We are seek contributions that highlight the governance challenges of tackling the water quality concerns of poor and disenfranchised groups and minorities.

A wide variety of contributions are welcome: case studies, modelling studies, surveys, reviews. Research results from the physical or social sciences, humanities, or interdisciplinary studies are welcome. Research findings at all scales (local to global) are also welcome.

Submitted manuscripts can address (but are not limited to) the following topics:

• Integrated policies and measures that help advance the SDG water quality target and other SDG targets;
• Trade-offs and synergies between water quality and other SDG targets—ranking their importance;
• Water quality and biodiversity, especially policy contexts;
• Water quality and poverty;
• The relationship between water quality and gender equality;
• Water quality and achieving health targets of the SDGs;
• Governance issues related to water quality;
• The politics of knowledge and water quality
• Changing water quality and its impacts on economic sectors.

Authors are asked to explicitly describe the relationship between water quality issues and SDGs at the target level in their submitted manuscripts.

Prof. Joseph Alcamo
Prof. Lyla Mehta
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2400 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.

• water quality
• water pollution
• water degradation
• water quality and SDG trade-offs, synergies, interactions
• water quality and gender
• water quality and poverty
• Contested framing of water quality
• water quality and public health
• water quality and governance
• water quality and economic impacts
• water quality and water scarcity