One Health in the Flow: Wastewater-Based Epidemiology Across Humans, Animals and Environments

Dear Colleagues,

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has evolved from its origins in the 1960s as a surveillance tool for poliovirus into a powerful and versatile platform for public health intelligence. The COVID-19 pandemic, along with advances in molecular techniques and rapid sequencing, propelled WBE into the global spotlight, demonstrating its unique capacity to provide near–real-time insights into infectious disease dynamics at the population level. This Special Issue seeks to critically reflect on the innovation arising during the COVID-19 pandemic and examine the next phase of WBE’s development, characterized by methodological innovation, standardization and integration into routine health surveillance systems.

We invite contributions that advance analytical and molecular techniques, data interpretation frameworks and sampling standardization, as well as studies that extend WBE to novel applications, including antimicrobial resistance, chemical exposures and zoonotic or emerging pathogens from both urban and animal production wastewater.

Positioned at the intersection of environmental science, molecular biology and public health, this issue aims to consolidate progress made since the COVID-19 era and explore the pathway toward institutionalized, community-level WBE programs. By situating these contributions within the broader literature on environmental surveillance and One Health, the issue will define the emerging frontiers of wastewater-based monitoring as a cornerstone of 21st-century epidemiology.

Prof. Dr. Paul M. Bertsch
Dr. Warish Ahmed
Guest Editors

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