Modelling and prediction of the effect of operational parameters on the fate of contaminants of emerging concern in WWTPs.

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) provide a barrier against the discharge of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) into the environment. The removal of CECs is highly WWTP-specific and the underlying mechanisms are still poorly understood, hampering the optimization of biological treatment steps for their removal. To fill this knowledge gap, we assessed the influence of four operational parameters of activated sludge biological treatment, namely total suspended solids, temperature, pH and redox conditions, on the sorption and biodegradation of four CECs under controlled laboratory conditions.

A hybrid Neural Network-SEIR model for forecasting intensive care occupancy in Switzerland during COVID-19 epidemics.

Anticipating intensive care unit (ICU) occupancy is critical in supporting decision makers to impose (or relax) measures that mitigate COVID-19 transmission. Mechanistic approaches such as Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) models have traditionally been used to achieve this objective. However, formulating such models is challenged by the necessity to formulate equations for plausible causal mechanisms between the intensity of COVID-19 transmission and external epidemic drivers such as temperature, and the stringency of non-pharmaceutical interventions.

Modelling the fate of micropollutants in integrated urban wastewater systems: Extending the applicability to pharmaceuticals.

Pharmaceutical active compounds (PhACs) are a category of micropollutants frequently detected across integrated urban wastewater systems. Existing modelling tools supporting the evaluation of micropollutant fate in such complex systems, such as the IUWS_MP model library (which acronym IUWS stands for Integrated Urban Wastewater System), do not consider fate processes and fractions that are typical for PhACs. This limitation was overcome by extending the existing IUWS_MP model library with new fractions (conjugated metabolites, sequestrated fraction) and processes (consumption-excretion, deconjugation).

A statistical assessment of micropollutants occurrence, time trend, fate and human health risk using left-censored water quality data.

In recent years, the presence of micropollutants in drinking water has become an issue of growing global concern. Due to their low concentrations, monitoring databases are usually rich in censored data (e.g.

Risk assessment of contaminants of emerging concern in the context of wastewater reuse for irrigation: An integrated modelling approach.

Direct reuse of reclaimed wastewater (RWW) in agriculture has recently received increasing attention as a possible solution to water scarcity. The presence of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in RWW can be critical, as these chemicals can be uptaken in irrigated crops and eventually ingested during food consumption. In the present study, an integrated model was developed to predict the fate of CECs in water reuse systems where RWW is used for edible crops irrigation.

Modelling micropollutant fate in sewer systems - A new systematic approach to support conceptual model construction based on in-sewer hydraulic retention time.

Conceptual sewer models are useful tools to assess the fate of micropollutants (MPs) in integrated wastewater systems. However, the definition of their model structure is highly subjective, and obtaining a realistic simulation of the in-sewer hydraulic retention time (HRT) is a major challenge without detailed hydrodynamic information or with limited measurements from the sewer network. This study presents an objective approach for defining the structure of conceptual sewer models in view of modelling MP fate in large urban catchments.