Rural Wastewater Treatment by Nature-Based Solutions
A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Wastewater Treatment and Reuse".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 January 2026 | Viewed by 5
Special Issue Editors
Interests: rural wastewater treatment; nature-based solutions; life cycle assessment; techno-economic analysis; resource recovery; sustainability
Interests: micropollutants; PFAS; wastewater treatment; ozonation; water quality
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
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
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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
- rural wastewater treatment
- water reuse
- nature-based solutions
- life cycle assessment
- techno-economic analysis
- resource recovery
- sustainability
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