Reduction of Human Enteric and Indicator Viruses at a Wastewater Treatment Plant in Southern Louisiana,USA

This study assessed wastewater quality through the quantification of four human enteric viruses and the applicability of pepper mild mottle virus (PMMoV) a     

Reduction of Pathogenic and Indicator Viruses at a Drinking Water Treatment Plant in Southern Louisiana,USA

Monthly sampling was conducted at a drinking water treatment plant (DWTP) in Southern Louisiana, USA from March 2017 to February 2018 to determine the prev     

Municipal solid waste management, source-separated waste and stakeholder’s attitude: a Contingent Valuation Study

Recognition of the social costs associated with traditional practices of urban waste management in India led to the formulation of Municipal Waste Management and Handling rules (2000). However, compliance with the proposed collection and disposal involves higher commitment in terms of both time and money on the part of the residents, local bodies as well as the state and central government. In this context, information about the value of the environmental improvements conferred upon the city dwellers would be important from the planner’s perspective. Given the non-market characteristic of waste disposal services, we infer about beneficiaries’ perceived demand for the proposed service by means of Double-Bounded Dichotomous Choice Contingent Valuation Survey conducted in the Bally Municipality in the district of Howrah, West Bengal. We estimate the average WTP by controlling for anchoring bias and use the annualized value of cost to examine the feasibility of the proposed system.     

Wastewater management and the east-bound growth of the city of Kolkata: a compatibility analysis

Kolkata, home of 4.5 million people, is generating 1112 million liters of sewage per day and facing the challenge of managing this wastewater. The 125 km² wide wetland on the eastern fringe of the city, popularly known as the East Kolkata Wetlands is serving as a natural sewage treatment plant for more than a century where nearly 78 % of city sewage goes through an intricately designed canal network. This wetland is a designated RAMSAR site where the sewage treatment process is a rare example of an intertwined symbiotic relation between wastewater treatment and wetland aquaculture, where livelihood dependence of the local people on sewage-fed fisheries becomes of strategic importance in sustainable performance of the system. An aggressive urban expansion in the eastern fringe of the city is disturbing this age-old eco-balance by making this sewage water pisciculture less profitable. There is push factor due to reduced attraction of the wastewater fisheries and a pull factor due to emergence of alternative livelihood options through rapid urbanization. To protect wetland in its original form, the civil society and the administrative authorities are designing active interventions. However, these are not generating expected results as these instruments are targeting to mitigate the push factor only without paying much heed to the push–pull interactions.     

Performance Evaluation of Human-Specific Viral Markers and Application of Pepper Mild Mottle Virus and CrAssphage to Environmental Water Samples as Fecal Pollution Markers in the Kathmandu Valley,Nepal

Monitoring of environmental water is crucial to protecting humans and animals from possible health risks. Although numerous human-specific viral markers have been designed to track the presence of human fecal contamination in water, they lack adequate sensitivity and specificity in different geographical regions. We evaluated the performances of six human-specific viral markers [Aichi virus 1 (AiV-1), human adenoviruses (HAdVs), BK and JC polyomaviruses (BKPyVs and JCPyVs), pepper mild mottle virus (PMMoV), and crAssphage] using 122 fecal-source samples collected from humans and five animal hosts in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. PMMoV and crAssphage showed high sensitivity (90–100%) with concentrations of 4.5–9.1 and 6.2–7.0 log₁₀ copies/g wet feces (n = 10), respectively, whereas BKPyVs, JCPyVs, HAdVs, and AiV-1 showed poor performances with sensitivities of 30–40%. PMMoV and crAssphage were detected in 40–100% and 8–90%, respectively, of all types of animal fecal sources and showed no significantly different concentrations among most of the fecal sources (Kruskal–Wallis test, P > 0.05), suggesting their applicability as general fecal pollution markers. Furthermore, a total of 115 environmental water samples were tested for PMMoV and crAssphage to identify fecal pollution. PMMoV and crAssphage were successfully detected in 62% (71/115) and 73% (84/115) of water samples, respectively. The greater abundance and higher mean concentration of crAssphage (4.1 ± 0.9 log₁₀ copies/L) compared with PMMoV (3.3 ± 1.4 log₁₀ copies/L) indicated greater chance of detection of crAssphage in water samples, suggesting that crAssphage could be preferred to PMMoV as a marker of fecal pollution.

     

Willingness to pay before and after program implementation: the case of Municipal Solid Waste Management in Bally Municipality,India

This paper identifies the factors that influence perception of program benefit of the recipients when a hypothetical public program is implemented in reality. We compare pre- and post-program Willingness to pay (WTP) estimates for improved waste management in Bally Municipality, India, and find that post-program predicted WTP falls by more than 50 % even when if there are substantial improvements in urban environment. We show that this can be explained by the relative strength of leisure cost of effort to participate in the waste management program vis-à-vis the benefit derived from cleaner environment. Our study shows that mismatch between expected and offered service attributes might be a source of disutility and could also dampen households’ perceived value of the program benefits. In such cases, the reduction in WTP might act as an indication of the local bodies regarding the scale of outreach and expansion of the program needed to finance the operation and maintenance expenses by supplementing the property tax bases through user fees.     

Persistence and occurrence of SARS-CoV-2 in water and wastewater environments: a review of the current literature

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - As the world continues to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, emerging evidence indicates that respiratory transmission may not the only pathway in which...