Opportunities and Challenges in Biological Water Treatment

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce a Special Issue of our journal focusing on the topic of “Opportunities and Challenges in Biological Water Treatment”. Biological water treatment processes rely partially or entirely on biological mechanisms to achieve the removal of target pollutants. These processes encompass natural (e.g., riverbank) and engineered (e.g., biofiltration, activated sludge, and membrane bioreactors) processes. Compared to natural systems, engineered systems are characterized by a more controlled design and well-defined operating parameters. Understanding the relationships between operational parameters, microorganisms, and system performance, as well as identifying keystone taxa in water treatment systems, are the primary objectives and challenges in water treatment systems, which can help stabilize and enhance the performance of biological units in water treatment. With the rapid development of high-throughput sequencing technology, the diversity of microbial communities in water treatment systems has gradually attracted much attention. However, it is still a challenge to reveal the spatial and temporal distribution pattern of microbial communities and regulate functional taxa for effective water treatment. For example, it is necessary to further discover, identify, and verify the keystone taxa in the water treatment system while understanding their impact on its performance and stability. Multi-omics technologies (e.g., metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and metaproteomics) offer great advantages in analyzing the functions of microbial communities, and can provide data on microbial community structure/function under different water qualities and operational conditions. This information can then be utilized to precisely regulate the microbiomes in order to maximize their engineering and ecological value in the fields of water treatment and resource recovery.

We invite authors to submit original research articles, reviews, or perspectives addressing various aspects of opportunities and challenges in biological water treatment, such as drinking water treatment, urban sewage treatment, reclaimed water treatment, and rural wastewater treatment.

Dr. Zedong Lu
Prof. Dr. Shenbin Cao
Prof. Dr. Xiaoyan Fan
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.