The significant sources of wastewater are domestic households, industries and hospitals. This paper would cater to resolving critical issues arising due to the latter i.e., hospital wastewater. The onset of COVID-19 and its escalation to a global pandemic is reason enough to surveil hospital wastewater (HWW) owing to its epidemiology and ecotoxic nature and impact. The wastewater from hospitals is a hotbed of emerging contaminants like pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs), heavy metals, surfactants, radioisotopes and other hazardous substances. Hospital effluent is characterized by a high chemical oxygen demand (COD) ranging between 120 – 500 mg/L and an average Biochemical Oxygen demand (BOD) is around 200 mg/L along with the presence of Nitrogenous compounds, total organic carbon, suspended solids, epidemic vectors and other emerging contaminants. A Core HWW has a very low biodegradability index along with having a low BOD: COD ratio ranging between 0.29 to 0.34, which is indicative of the ‘difficulty’ in treatment via the most economical treatment method i.e., biological pathway. The volume of wastewater generated from hospitals depends on its size and type, patient intake capacity, technical facilities and miscellaneous services provided to patients. The purpose of this paper would be to solely target the “ABC (Algal-Bacterial Consortia)-based MBBR as an onsite decentralized treatment system for hospital wastewater using microbial intelligence” such that any epidemiological or ecotoxicological risks are prevented, if not eliminated. The introduction of algal biomass along with “fragile” bacterial consortium may circumvent the above-presented challenges by prominently addressing a) PhAC shock load; b) sustainable pollutant removal requiring less oxygen support; c) Surfactant-Antibiotic removal without causing ecotoxicological and epidemiological by-product vectors. Hence, the basic intent of this research would be to hybridize MBBR technology by using algal bacterial consortium (ABC) and target the ‘FES (feasible, effective and sustainable’ onsite treatment facility of hospital wastewater.

Heavy metals are descried as environmental pollutants because their toxicity, longevity in the atmosphere, and unfortunately their ability to accumulate in the human body thru bio-accumulation. Also, the pollution of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems with toxic heavy metals is a major environmental concern that has consequences for public health. These heavy metals are characterized by their high atomic mass and toxicity to all organisms. Most of them cause environmental and atmospheric pollution, and more drastic can be lethal to humans. Heavy metals can become very toxic in contact with different environmental elements (water, soil, air). Eco-friendly and low-cost methods become new perspectives for near future. Our research development a process for removal of nichel ions from waste water. Using Typha angustifolia plant, were made experiments to perform the Ni (II) ions removal. It was observed an increase using more than a plant via a long period of time, the yield being approximately 85% when 5 plants were used, compared to 77% yield when only one plant was used.

The objective of this paper is to analyse the economic feasibility of using rainwater for non-potable purposes in single-family houses in the city of Blumenau, Brazil. A house was used as a case study to estimate the water end-uses and water consumption. Residents were asked to register the frequency and time of use of water fixtures. Then, the daily water consumption and water end-uses for non-potable purposes were estimated. To account for houses of different characteristics in Blumenau, different roof areas, number of residents, daily per capita water consumption, and rainwater demand were adopted. The rainwater tank capacities, the potential for potable water savings and economic feasibility analysis were performed using the computer programme Netuno 4. For the different scenarios, the potential for potable water savings ranged from 18.76% to 58.06%, with an average equal to 37.90%. For the case-study house, the potential for potable water savings was 50.32%. The rainwater harvesting system was found to be economically feasible for 58.3% of the different scenarios and also for the case-study house. Thus, the implementation of rainwater harvesting systems for single-family houses in Blumenau proved to be economically feasible for most cases.

We propose an automatic and non-invasive system for monitoring the health of vine plants by measuring their water stress, with the goal of mitigating the increasingly frequent extreme meteorological events such as droughts. The envisioned system measures the spatial distribution of the Crop Water Stress Index (CWSI) on the crop field, to provide the farmers with a precise control on their vine’s health and, therefore, on the final quality of their product. To ensure the robust acquisition of parameters needed to compute the CWSI, data are collected by field sensors on the ground, by drones, and by exploiting satellite data. Data fusion then allows to obtain an associated georeferenced heatmap of the vineyard. The solution has been tested via a prototype, which allowed the collection of information in a vineyard.

Climate change has various impacts on different living conditions of societies. Climate change-induced environmental impacts have had an especially strong influence on water resources, which has had negative consequences for societies’ living conditions. Increasing global temperatures are bringing huge problems with surface water evaporation, while the warmer atmosphere is maintaining more moisture aloft that causes both heavy floods and induces extreme droughts in different parts of the world. Declining water availability not only is resulting in droughts but is also responsible for decreasing the quality of water in water-scarce regions, such as the South Caucasus. Countries cannot adopt to climate change by themselves and require international governance of water and other natural resources. Without sufficient water resources, the overall productivity of societies is decreasing, influencing demographic change, economic development, urbanization, and globalization, as well as intensifying conflicts over water use. In the Southern Caucasus, the long-standing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict (1988-present) between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted again into war in 2020, resulting in Azerbaijan recapturing much of its territory from local Armenian separatists and Russia negotiating a new truce and installing troops to maintain the peace. In my paper, ask what the nexus is between conflict and insufficient water resources? How will intensifying climate change in the region affect the current political situation – is there any chance of multilateral cooperation on water management?