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Urban Water Pollution Control: Theory and Technology

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Urban Water Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 August 2025 | Viewed by 2944

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
School of Environment, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou 215009, China
Interests: urban water pollution control; coagulation; adsorption; advanced oxidation; ecological restoration; environmental functional materials
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences, Nanjing, China
Interests: water and wastewater treatment; coagulation; flocculation; adsorption; membrane technology; advanced oxidation; ecological restoration

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Guest Editor
School of Worship, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou, China
Interests: advanced oxidation process; water purification; algal dewatering and resource utilization

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Continuous urbanization and industrialization have led to an increase in stormwater runoff, which has resulted in the discharge of heavy metals, nutrients, and organic chemicals. Transporting pollutants into water systems can harm both human health and aquatic species. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the theory and technology of pollutant control in urban water.

The purpose of this Topic “Urban Water Pollution Control: Theory and Technology” is to review the properties and transport and fate of pollutants in urban aquatic systems, list and discuss occurrence and treatment efficiencies, develop new ways, i.e., low-impact development and sponge city to control the conventional pollutants and micropollutants, and provide a report of status and research needs on aquatic and multimedia models.

Papers are welcome on topics including, but not limited to, the following:

  • Theory of Fate and Transport of Pollutants in Urban Water;
  • Control Strategies and Theory;
  • Emerging Pollutants in Water;
  • Low-impact Development and Sponge City;
  • Physical–chemical Remediation;
  • Microbial Remediation;
  • Ecological Restoration;
  • Emergency Restoration Method;
  • Climate Change and Resource Recovery;
  • Water Quality Monitoring.

In this field, research papers, reviews, and short communications will be accepted. Concerning original articles, only studies concerning the evaluation of environmental concentrations or, in general, with a high ecological impact will be considered. This Topic will aim to collect articles that contribute to filling the knowledge gap related to the fate and transport of pollutants in urban water.

Dr. Bingdang Wu
Dr. Yonghai Gan
Dr. Jingjing Yang
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. Water 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 2600 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

  • micropollutants
  • urban water
  • remediation
  • low-impact development
  • sponge city
  • constructed wetland

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 3483 KiB  
Article
Bibliometric Analysis of Hydrothermal Wastewater Treatment in the Last Two Decades
by Abel Santillan-Angeles, Candido Mendoza-Perez, Edwin Villagrán, Francisco Garcia and Jorge Flores-Velazquez
Water 2025, 17(5), 746; https://doi.org/10.3390/w17050746 - 4 Mar 2025
Viewed by 533
Abstract
The reuse of wastewater expands its area of influence due in part to the water crisis and the increase in population in urban areas. Technologically, the methods of the treatment and separation of toxic agents have been diversified to provide water with a [...] Read more.
The reuse of wastewater expands its area of influence due in part to the water crisis and the increase in population in urban areas. Technologically, the methods of the treatment and separation of toxic agents have been diversified to provide water with a second use. The objective of this work was to evaluate the growth and development of science in the hydrothermal wastewater treatment (HTAR) through a bibliometric analysis. The keywords directly obtained from the treatment method were used in order to carry out the integration of related published research, and the terms used in the search both separately and crossly were “treatment, hydrothermal, wastewater” in the database from SCOPUS; 97 response records were filtered to 87 documents that were analyzed using BIBLIMETRIX as the R Statistical interface. According to the results obtained, the trend of documents published is shown, with 17 articles in 2023 and 21 in 2024. The author with the highest number of contributions on the topic is Yuanhui Zhang. The countries most involved in this issue are China, the U.S.A., and Japan; China was the one with the highest number of publications. The scientific and technological development regarding the HTAR is shown; and that, technology is aimed at the use and generation of energy. In addition, hydrothermal liquefaction treatment is being investigated to generate biocrude and bio-oils; the hydrothermal carbonization treatment for the generation of hydrochar; and the hydrothermal gasification treatment to produce methane and hydrogen; all from biomass with a high moisture content. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Water Pollution Control: Theory and Technology)
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16 pages, 1915 KiB  
Article
Sensitivity Analysis-Aided Calibration of Urban Drainage Modeling
by Morteza Kheshti Azar, Carlo Giudicianni and Enrico Creaco
Water 2025, 17(5), 612; https://doi.org/10.3390/w17050612 - 20 Feb 2025
Viewed by 446
Abstract
This paper presents a novel methodology for the event-based calibration of urban drainage models based on conceptual simulation of external sub-catchments and physical representation of underground channels. Following the setup of the numerical model of an urban drainage system and the definition of [...] Read more.
This paper presents a novel methodology for the event-based calibration of urban drainage models based on conceptual simulation of external sub-catchments and physical representation of underground channels. Following the setup of the numerical model of an urban drainage system and the definition of the list of parameters, the methodology proposed is based on two steps, namely the application of sensitivity analysis for the identification of influent parameters and the calibration of the model on each event considering the reduced set of influent parameters by means of an optimizer. The methodology is applied to the Cascina Scala urban catchment in Pavia, northern Italy, for which a rainfall/runoff dataset is available for 14 events. In the applications, the urban drainage system is constructed in the EPA-SWMM environment, and a genetic algorithm is used for calibration. The results prove that the model parameterized with the innovative methodology features a very good fit to experimental data concerning hydrographs at the exit of the catchment while offering significant computational advantages compared with the usual calibration approach. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Water Pollution Control: Theory and Technology)
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21 pages, 15270 KiB  
Article
Adsorption Removal of Organophosphates from Water by Steel Slag: Modification, Performance, and Energy Site Analysis
by Wei Wu, Yiming Nie, Zhixin Wang, Tianyin Huang, Xiaoyi Xu, Hanhan Liu, Peirong Li and Bingdang Wu
Water 2024, 16(21), 3145; https://doi.org/10.3390/w16213145 - 3 Nov 2024
Viewed by 1474
Abstract
Organophosphates are a type of emerging environmental contaminant, which can be removed effectively by adsorption. Here, modified steel slag was examined for its adsorptive performance in the removal of hydroxyethylidene diphosphonic acid (HEDP) from water. Compared to acid (55.3%, maximum removal rate) and [...] Read more.
Organophosphates are a type of emerging environmental contaminant, which can be removed effectively by adsorption. Here, modified steel slag was examined for its adsorptive performance in the removal of hydroxyethylidene diphosphonic acid (HEDP) from water. Compared to acid (55.3%, maximum removal rate) and base (85.5%) modification, high-temperature modification (90.6%) significantly enhanced steel slag’s adsorption capacity for HEDP, surpassing that of unmodified slag (71.2%). Kinetic analyses elucidated a two-phase adsorption process—initial rapid adsorption followed by a slower equilibrium phase. The results of adsorption energy analysis showed that modified steel slag preferentially occupied the sites with higher energy, which promoted the adsorption. After five regeneration cycles, the adsorption properties of the material were not significantly reduced, which indicates that the material has good application potential. Microscopic and spectroscopic techniques, including SEM-EDS, FTIR, and XPS, were employed to uncover the surface chemistry and structural changes responsible for the enhanced adsorption efficiency. The adsorption mechanism of HEDP on steel slag is a complete process guided by hydrogen bonding interactions, strengthened surface complexation, and optimized ligand exchange. This study advances the sustainable utilization of industrial waste materials and contributes significantly to the development of innovative water treatment technologies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Water Pollution Control: Theory and Technology)
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