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SUMMARY:Learning from sewers - informational content of wastewater\, metho
 dological challenges and solutions 
DTSTART:20130528T161500
DTEND:20130528T171500
DTSTAMP:20260509T101004Z
UID:496cffa44024abb44c0fd1eaa11699abd8a48761e11e37f3e39c3acc
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Dr Christoph Ort\, Urban Water Management\, EAWAG\, CH\nSewers
  are an excellent example for NID. Increasingly\, wastewater is not only s
 een as a sink for pollutants but it is a vital resource in water reuse sch
 emes and it contains a wealth of information. Scientists from various disc
 iplines take samples from sewers to quantify pollutant concentrations in w
 astewater and calculate full scale mass fluxes for different source typing
  and tracking purposes (e.g. quantification of hospital wastewater).\nAt t
 he influent of a sewage treatment plant\, wastewater often appears to be a
  more or less homogeneous\, continuous\, grey-brownish stream. Most of the
  emerging contaminants of interest (i.e. micro- and nano-pollutants) canno
 t be measured online\, particularly not in a dirty and hazardous environme
 nt such as sewers are. Therefore\, it is a tedious task to demonstrate tha
 t concentrations of emerging contaminants can be subject to high dynamics 
 and that predicting the expected variability of a particular substance at 
 a particular place in a sewer system is a challenge. However\, it is imper
 ative to know or characterize the variability of the substance under inves
 tigation\, as this is a prerequisite to collect representative samples.\nA
  lot of effort is put into improving the sensitivity and selectivity of an
 alytical methods to quantify lower and lower concentrations of chemicals. 
 The fact that sampling is the first step of analytical chemistry is often 
 overlooked. If a sample is not fit for purpose\, chemical and statistical 
 analyses cannot make up for deficiencies in sampling\, no matter how sophi
 sticated they are.\nUnique insights into the dynamics of pollutants in a s
 election of sewer systems around the globe will be presented during the ta
 lk. Additionally\, a sampling proficiency test\, methods to predict patter
 ns of pollutants and solutions to setup robust sampling schemes will be el
 aborated on. The most prominent example is the estimation of illicit drug 
 consumption through wastewater analysis. Only when environmental engineers
 \, analytical chemists\, forensic scientists and epidemiologists work toge
 ther in transdisciplinary teams can this approach provide reliable informa
 tion about this highly stigmatized problem. 
LOCATION:GR A3 32 http://plan.epfl.ch/?room=GR%20A3%2032
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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