Urban water | CleanWaterResearch

With funding from the Reece Foundation we are investigating the sources of fecal pollution of the urban river Ouseburn, and implications for recreational water quality in public parkland. In collaboration with IIT Gandhinagar and UKIERI funding we investigated sustainable urban water systems like rainwater harvesting and wastewater reclamation in the UK and India.

Outcomes:
Read my opinion piece about five ways to know if a river is polluted with sewage.
Read about the impacts of combined sewer overflow discharges on the bacteriology of an urban river.
Read about our Lab in a Van for fecal pollution source tracking with onsite qPCR assays.
Read about performance gaps of sustainability features in green award winning university buildings with rainwater harvesting systems. The case study is based on the Devonshire Building and Urban Sciences Building of Newcastle University.
Read about our real word sustainability analysis of a decentralized water system in India with rainwater harvesting and zero wastewater discharge.

Reece Foundation project: Cleaning up the Ouseburn

Previous projects:
At IIT Gandhinagar we collaborate as part of the UK India Education Research Initiative (UKIERI) on Vulnerability Assessment and Sustainable Solutions for Water Quality Management in the Urban Environment with:
Dr Manish Kumar

In front of the mobile lab in a van after the successful on-site sequencing test at BEWISE

Inside the lab in a van doing chemical water analysis using photospectrometry

Answering questions from the audience

Lecture on the food-water quality nexus in periurban aquacultures

Training in bacterial water quality analysis using the MinION of Oxford Nanopore Technologies, delivered by Dr Kishor Acharya at IIT Gandhinagar

Practical training in Newcastle: Loading the flow cell

Practical training in Newcastle: Kishor explains MinION sequencing to Newcastle and IIT Gandhinagar students

Prof Kumar inspects the National Green Infrastructure Facility, guided by Dr Ross Stirling, and the ultra-low water use Propelair toilets in Newcastle University’s Urban Science building