Water & Wastewater Asia September/October 2022

FOCUS
improve the efficiency and efficacy of
water treatment.
In its long-term collaboration with
Nanyang Environment and Water
Research Institute (NEWRI), part of an
institute at the Nanyang Technological
University (NTU) in Singapore, Agilent
has supported NEWRI with new
technologies such as an ion-mobility
quadrupole time-of-flight instrument,
amongst others, to meet the national
water safety interest of Singapore.
Through its partnership with Agilent,
NEWRI can utilise high-resolution
mass spectrometry instrumentation to
examine more complex mixtures with
higher selectivity while carrying out
cell analysis. The inductively coupled
plasma instrument, which NEWRI has
coupled with gas chromatography and
liquid chromatography technology,
has helped the institute make new
discoveries around disinfection
by-products and other halogenated
species that would not have been
possible previously.
LONG-STANDING PUBLIC HEALTH
SURVEILLANCE TOOL
Wastewater-based epidemiology
(WBE) has long been used to
analyse wastewater to determine the
exposure of chemicals or pathogens
in a population. It has also been
used to evaluate unlawful drug use in
communities, as well as to indirectly
measure the consumption of alcohol,
caffeine, various pharmaceuticals, and
other compounds.
The COVID-19 pandemic has
compromised the world’s commitment
to the 2030 Agenda of the United
Nations’ sustainable development
goals adopted in 2015, amidst public
concern over the importance of
sanitation, wastewater and sewage
monitoring.
In Singapore, NEWRI has harnessed
its existing wastewater management
and knowledge of Singapore’s
complex sewage collection system
to monitor the prevalence of SARS-
CoV-2 viral strains in the population,
as they could persist in water bodies
or sewage and either remain infectious
or lie dormant with the potential to
regain infectivity later. By doing so,
an early warning system can be sent
out to prompt local lockdowns and
emergency preparedness in local
healthcare facilities.
UNIVERSAL ACCESS TO SAFE
DRINKING WATER
In some of the developing communities
in South East Asia, poor water
quality presents an unknown longterm
impact, translating directly into
environmental, social, health and
economic problems. To empower
these communities to conduct their
own water quality monitoring for safe
and reliable water systems, further
development is needed in online
sensing and effective field-deployable
water quality for quick particle
counting.
This global issue has thrown some
governments under the spotlight,
urging them to take action by
implementing policies to improve poor
wastewater management systems
in the region. Though there has
been headway made for industrial
wastewater standards in countries like
Singapore 5 and Vietnam 6 , where the
drafting of new industrial wastewater
standards is taking place, more needs
to be done to address this pressing
issue.
ACCOUNTABILITY FOR
ALL COMMUNITIES
Everybody has the right to safe drinking
water. Closing the research gap in
the quality of water and sanitation
should be at the heart of government
funding and planning strategies.
While international organisations
have released suggested guidance
on wastewater discharge and certain
countries have taken steps of their
own on a regional basis, there is no
uniform global requirement to protect a
country’s water and its population from
water contamination. A more unified
global response is needed, given the
urgency of the issue.
REFERENCES
1
UNESCO: Water pollution stats
2
World Wildlife Fund for Nature: Plastic Ingestion
3
World Health Organization: Drinking water
4
National Geographic: You eat thousands of bits of plastic
every year
5
National Environment Agency: Water Quality
6
Enviliance: Vietnam drafting new industrial wastewater
standard
WATER & WASTEWATER ASIA | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 43