Rural Wastewater Treatment by Nature-Based Solutions

Dear Colleagues,

Rural areas around the world face unique challenges in managing wastewater due to dispersed populations, limited infrastructure, and constrained financial and technical resources. Nature-based solutions (NbS)—such as constructed wetlands, stabilization ponds, vegetated infiltration systems, and ecological treatment landscapes—offer promising alternatives to conventional centralized systems. These approaches harness natural processes for pollutant removal, while also delivering co-benefits such as biodiversity enhancement, carbon sequestration, and improved landscape esthetics.

This Special Issue invites original research articles, reviews, and case studies that explore innovative applications of nature-based solutions for rural wastewater treatment. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following: design and optimization of decentralized NbS systems; nutrient and micropollutant removal; lifecycle environmental and economic assessments; integration with resource recovery (e.g., water reuse, energy, or nutrient recovery); and policy or governance frameworks supporting NbS adoption in rural contexts.

Through this Special Issue, we aim to provide a platform for interdisciplinary dialogue and to advance sustainable, resilient, and scalable approaches for wastewater treatment in rural and peri-urban areas.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Rui Zhang
Dr. Xuetong 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 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. 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.