Water & Wastewater Asia May/June 2022

NEWS
MERGER MARKS NEW ERA IN WATER COLLABORATION
As the water sector, governments and
wider society face unprecedented
challenges, the need to embrace
change, innovate and collaborate
has never been more critical.
The merger of two water sector
organisations in the UK aims to l
ead the way.
In April 2022, British Water (BW)
and the Water Industry Forum (WIF)
announced that the merger of the
two organisations was completed.
The merger will increase the range
of services on offer, strengthen
membership support and enhance
the opportunity for challenge-led
thought leadership, which will
provide greater authority and a
stronger voice both nationally and
internationally—elements that are
only growing more essential in the
current economic climate.
Chris Loughlin, chair of British Water,
commented: “By joining forces, we’ve
created an even stronger organisation
that can deliver ever greater value for
all our members, key stakeholders,
partners and the sector as a whole.
There is a tremendous synergy to be
gained from bringing our respective
strengths together.”
The WIF will remain as a not-forprofit
limited company, operating
as a subsidiary of BW. A proposed
operating model and governance
framework have been deployed to
support the activities and priorities
of the merger organisation, and more
importantly to preserve the WIF’s
integrity and independence.
“BW and WIF have histories of
achievements, for and on behalf
of their members and the sector,”
he concluded. “We know that by
combining our respective strengths
we can create a new and even
stronger organisation that will deliver
added value for all our members, key
stakeholders and partners, enabling
us to respond most effectively and
efficiently to the challenges and
opportunities ahead of us.”
The merger between
WIF and BW aims
to encourage more
collaborations in the
water section
FRESHWATER STREAMS AND RIVERS ARE
GETTING SALTIER AND MORE ALKALINE
ions that are dissolved in water that contribute
to salt pollution.”
A study led by the US National Science
Foundation (NSF) grantee researchers at
the University of Maryland revealed how
salinisation from road salt combined with
other pollutants can impact the ecological
balance of freshwater bodies, and can
potentially create conditions that harm
aquatic life and pollute drinking water.
Sujay Kaushal, lead author of the
study, explained: “This is a problem
that’s caused by road salt, but also
other sources of salt pollution in our
environment—the fertilisers we put on
crops, the sewerage we put out, the roads
that break down. It’s not just sodium
chloride that’s increasing, it’s all these salt
In addition to coining the term “Freshwater
Salinisation Syndrome”, the team created
a five-stage scale to assess salt pollution
damage and a salinisation scorecard to
evaluate water quality and salinisation
risk. The study, published in Limnology
and Oceanography Letters, offers an
understanding of the effect road salt has on
waterway ecology and details risk factors to
the environment and infrastructure.
Road salt affects
water quality and harms
freshwater bodies (Photo
credit: Katja Schulz)
“We developed a five-stage system to identify
and track the unhealthy progression of
salinisation in our rivers in much the same
way we would track an illness or disease like
cancer,” Kaushal concluded. “We have to look
at this unhealthy ‘Salinisation Syndrome’ from
a systems-level perspective if we’re going to
develop guidelines for diagnosing harmful
levels and treat the problem.”
WATER & WASTEWATER ASIA | MAY/JUNE 2022 7