KWR publication on monitoring SARS-CoV-2 in sewage garners much interest

In the paper, published in the journal Current Opinion in Environmental Science & Health, Béen and his co-authors describe how sewage can be used to detect infectious diseases transmitted through faeces and urine. Sewage as a source of information about public health, and therefore as a ‘mirror of society’. The article proposed using this method as a tool to map the extent of COVID-19 in urban environments and as an early warning for the emergence or re-emergence of SARS-CoV-2. The study had a particularly large impact at the time of the global corona pandemic.

Wastewater data

KWR researcher Béen’s contribution to the article related to wastewater sampling methods and the interpretation of wastewater data. He also made a contribution to explaining the effect of external factors, such as population size and mobility, sampling frequency and temporal resolution, on wastewater analysis results.  His colleague, lead author Medema, concentrated primarily on explaining how wastewater analysis can be used to monitor infectious diseases, taking into account both virological and epidemiological aspects. Heijnen’s focus was on methods based on PCR that are used to monitor pathogens. How useful are these methods and what are their limitations? And how do the analysis results affect the interpretation of wastewater data?

‘I am proud and above all grateful that I and my colleagues were able to contribute with this paper to the further development of wastewater analysis in support of public health,’ said Frederic Béen.

128 citations

Béen explains the large number of references in the scientific literature to the paper – 128 in 2022 – by reference to its groundbreaking nature. ‘I believe this was the first article at the time to discuss in detail the current knowledge about wastewater analysis for COVID-19,’ he says. ‘It brought together expertise from our research on narcotics in sewage water with research on viruses and it provided a clear picture of both the opportunities and the challenges. The broad international reach of our article is linked to the exponential growth in the number of institutions involved in this type of surveillance. They are located in no fewer than 70 countries. In our paper, we describe the possibility of using sewer surveillance in a professional and representative way and interpreting the results.’

Valuable source of information

For the water sector, the paper made it crystal clear that waste water is a valuable source of information for the protection of people and the environment, believes Béen. ‘It is important here for the entire sector to embrace the approach. Sewage surveillance is a cost-effective way of rapidly tracking the spread of infectious diseases at the population level. But there are also challenges. The system of sewage networks is – and will remain – extremely complex. So the correct interpretation of wastewater data is not straightforward.’

Willem Koerselman Prize: since 2009

Since 2009, KWR has awarded the Willem Koerselman Prize to the author working at our institute who has been cited most in the past year. It is a way of making it clear what impact research has on the water sector. The man who gave his name to the prize, KWR researcher Willem Koerselman, led the way. In 1996, he published the article ‘The vegetation N:P ratio: A new tool to detect the nature of nutrient limitation’, in the Journal of Applied Ecology with co-author Arthur Meuleman. Since then, that paper has led the KWR rankings with more than 1,800 citations. A commendable achievement that still inspires others today.

Since 2009, KWR has awarded the Willem Koerselman Prize to the author working at our institute who has been cited most in the past year.