Understanding and managing uncertainty and variability for wastewater monitoring beyond the pandemic: Lessons learned from the United Kingdom national COVID-19 surveillance programmes

Matthew J Wade; Anna Lo Jacomo; Elena Armenise; Mathew R Brown; Joshua T Bunce; Graeme J Cameron; Zhou Fang; Kata Farkas; Deidre F Gilpin; David W Graham; Jasmine M S Grimsley; Alwyn Hart; Till Hoffmann; Katherine J Jackson; David L Jones; Chris J Lilley; John W McGrath; Jennifer M McKinley; Cormac McSparron; Behnam F Nejad; Mario Morvan; Marcos Quintela-Baluja; Adrian M I Roberts; Andrew C Singer; Célia Souque; Vanessa L Speight; Chris Sweetapple; David Walker; Glenn Watts; Andrew Weightman; Barbara Kasprzyk-Hordern

doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.127456

Understanding and managing uncertainty and variability for wastewater monitoring beyond the pandemic: Lessons learned from the United Kingdom national COVID-19 surveillance programmes

Matthew J Wade, Anna Lo Jacomo, Elena Armenise, Mathew R Brown, Joshua T Bunce, Graeme J Cameron, Zhou Fang, Kata Farkas, Deidre F Gilpin, David W Graham, Jasmine M S Grimsley, Alwyn Hart, Till Hoffmann, Katherine J Jackson, David L Jones, Chris J Lilley, John W McGrath, Jennifer M McKinley, Cormac McSparron, Behnam F NejadMario Morvan, Marcos Quintela-Baluja, Adrian M I Roberts, Andrew C Singer, Célia Souque, Vanessa L Speight, Chris Sweetapple, David Walker, Glenn Watts, Andrew Weightman, Barbara Kasprzyk-Hordern

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

118 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has put unprecedented pressure on public health resources around the world. From adversity, opportunities have arisen to measure the state and dynamics of human disease at a scale not seen before. In the United Kingdom, the evidence that wastewater could be used to monitor the SARS-CoV-2 virus prompted the development of National wastewater surveillance programmes. The scale and pace of this work has proven to be unique in monitoring of virus dynamics at a national level, demonstrating the importance of wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) for public health protection. Beyond COVID-19, it can provide additional value for monitoring and informing on a range of biological and chemical markers of human health. A discussion of measurement uncertainty associated with surveillance of wastewater, focusing on lessons-learned from the UK programmes monitoring COVID-19 is presented, showing that sources of uncertainty impacting measurement quality and interpretation of data for public health decision-making, are varied and complex. While some factors remain poorly understood, we present approaches taken by the UK programmes to manage and mitigate the more tractable sources of uncertainty. This work provides a platform to integrate uncertainty management into WBE activities as part of global One Health initiatives beyond the pandemic.

Original language	English
Article number	127456
Journal	Journal of Hazardous Materials
Volume	424
Issue number	Pt B
Early online date	8 Oct 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.127456
Publication status	Published - 15 Feb 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The United Kingdom Government (Department of Health and Social Care) fund the sampling, testing, and data analysis of wastewater in England. The Scottish Government (Rural & Environmental Science and Analytical Services division, Covid Testing in the Health and Social Care division) funds the sampling, testing, and data analysis of wastewater in Scotland. The Welsh Government (Technical Advisory Cell) funds the sampling, testing, and data analysis of Wastewater in Wales. The initial phase of the ?SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance and reporting SARS-CoV-2 in Northern Ireland project? was funded under the joint Science Foundation Ireland ? Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) COVID-19 Rapid Response Funding Call (20/COV/8460-1). The second stage of the project is funded by DAERA in collaboration with the Public Health Agency NI (PHA-NI). The project partners include DAERA, PHA-NI, the NI Environment Agency, Department of Health, Department for Infrastructure, Belfast City Council and NI Water Ltd. We would also like to acknowledge NI Water for providing access to use spatial data for the NI Water's Wastewater Network. The following funding sources are acknowledged by the contributing authors: ?National COVID-19 Wastewater Epidemiology Surveillance programme (NE/V010441/1) UKRI-NERC COVID Response [DG, DJ, AS, VS, BK-H]; ?Building an Early Warning System for community-wide infectious disease spread: SARS-CoV-2 tracking in Africa via environment fingerprinting? (EP/V028499/1) GCRF/Newton Fund [BK-H].

Funding Information:
Wastewater surveillance in Northern Ireland (NI) has several unique challenges compared to other parts of the UK, which are related to the urban and rural distribution of population. NI has an extensive wastewater treatment network operated by Northern Ireland Water (NI Water). In total, there are 1114 STWs in the NI Water network, serving just under 80% of the NI population. Each STW serves a wastewater drainage catchment area of variable sizes. Up to 68% of the NI Population is served by the 40 largest STWs. However, these larger STWs serve predominantly urban, as opposed to rural communities, and tend to be disproportionately located in eastern parts of NI. The integrated wastewater testing and geographic surveillance programme for SARS-CoV-2 in NI is led by Queen’s University Belfast, funded by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) in collaboration with the Public Health Agency NI (PHA-NI).

Appendix A. Supporting information
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found in the online version at doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.127456.

Keywords

Human pathogens
Measurement variability
Public health
Uncertainty analysis
Wastewater-based epidemiology

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Environmental Engineering
Environmental Chemistry
Waste Management and Disposal
Pollution
Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.127456

Cite this

Wade, M. J., Lo Jacomo, A., Armenise, E., Brown, M. R., Bunce, J. T., Cameron, G. J., Fang, Z., Farkas, K., Gilpin, D. F., Graham, D. W., Grimsley, J. M. S., Hart, A., Hoffmann, T., Jackson, K. J., Jones, D. L., Lilley, C. J., McGrath, J. W., McKinley, J. M., McSparron, C., ... Kasprzyk-Hordern, B. (2022). Understanding and managing uncertainty and variability for wastewater monitoring beyond the pandemic: Lessons learned from the United Kingdom national COVID-19 surveillance programmes. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 424(Pt B), Article 127456. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.127456

Understanding and managing uncertainty and variability for wastewater monitoring beyond the pandemic: Lessons learned from the United Kingdom national COVID-19 surveillance programmes. / Wade, Matthew J; Lo Jacomo, Anna; Armenise, Elena et al.
In: Journal of Hazardous Materials, Vol. 424, No. Pt B, 127456, 15.02.2022.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Wade, MJ, Lo Jacomo, A, Armenise, E, Brown, MR, Bunce, JT, Cameron, GJ, Fang, Z, Farkas, K, Gilpin, DF, Graham, DW, Grimsley, JMS, Hart, A, Hoffmann, T, Jackson, KJ, Jones, DL, Lilley, CJ, McGrath, JW, McKinley, JM, McSparron, C, Nejad, BF, Morvan, M, Quintela-Baluja, M, Roberts, AMI, Singer, AC, Souque, C, Speight, VL, Sweetapple, C, Walker, D, Watts, G, Weightman, A & Kasprzyk-Hordern, B 2022, 'Understanding and managing uncertainty and variability for wastewater monitoring beyond the pandemic: Lessons learned from the United Kingdom national COVID-19 surveillance programmes', Journal of Hazardous Materials, vol. 424, no. Pt B, 127456. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.127456

Wade MJ, Lo Jacomo A, Armenise E, Brown MR, Bunce JT, Cameron GJ et al. Understanding and managing uncertainty and variability for wastewater monitoring beyond the pandemic: Lessons learned from the United Kingdom national COVID-19 surveillance programmes. Journal of Hazardous Materials. 2022 Feb 15;424(Pt B):127456. Epub 2021 Oct 8. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.127456

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title = "Understanding and managing uncertainty and variability for wastewater monitoring beyond the pandemic: Lessons learned from the United Kingdom national COVID-19 surveillance programmes",

abstract = "The COVID-19 pandemic has put unprecedented pressure on public health resources around the world. From adversity, opportunities have arisen to measure the state and dynamics of human disease at a scale not seen before. In the United Kingdom, the evidence that wastewater could be used to monitor the SARS-CoV-2 virus prompted the development of National wastewater surveillance programmes. The scale and pace of this work has proven to be unique in monitoring of virus dynamics at a national level, demonstrating the importance of wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) for public health protection. Beyond COVID-19, it can provide additional value for monitoring and informing on a range of biological and chemical markers of human health. A discussion of measurement uncertainty associated with surveillance of wastewater, focusing on lessons-learned from the UK programmes monitoring COVID-19 is presented, showing that sources of uncertainty impacting measurement quality and interpretation of data for public health decision-making, are varied and complex. While some factors remain poorly understood, we present approaches taken by the UK programmes to manage and mitigate the more tractable sources of uncertainty. This work provides a platform to integrate uncertainty management into WBE activities as part of global One Health initiatives beyond the pandemic.",

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note = "Funding Information: The United Kingdom Government (Department of Health and Social Care) fund the sampling, testing, and data analysis of wastewater in England. The Scottish Government (Rural & Environmental Science and Analytical Services division, Covid Testing in the Health and Social Care division) funds the sampling, testing, and data analysis of wastewater in Scotland. The Welsh Government (Technical Advisory Cell) funds the sampling, testing, and data analysis of Wastewater in Wales. The initial phase of the ?SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance and reporting SARS-CoV-2 in Northern Ireland project? was funded under the joint Science Foundation Ireland ? Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) COVID-19 Rapid Response Funding Call (20/COV/8460-1). The second stage of the project is funded by DAERA in collaboration with the Public Health Agency NI (PHA-NI). The project partners include DAERA, PHA-NI, the NI Environment Agency, Department of Health, Department for Infrastructure, Belfast City Council and NI Water Ltd. We would also like to acknowledge NI Water for providing access to use spatial data for the NI Water's Wastewater Network. The following funding sources are acknowledged by the contributing authors: ?National COVID-19 Wastewater Epidemiology Surveillance programme (NE/V010441/1) UKRI-NERC COVID Response [DG, DJ, AS, VS, BK-H]; ?Building an Early Warning System for community-wide infectious disease spread: SARS-CoV-2 tracking in Africa via environment fingerprinting? (EP/V028499/1) GCRF/Newton Fund [BK-H]. Funding Information: Wastewater surveillance in Northern Ireland (NI) has several unique challenges compared to other parts of the UK, which are related to the urban and rural distribution of population. NI has an extensive wastewater treatment network operated by Northern Ireland Water (NI Water). In total, there are 1114 STWs in the NI Water network, serving just under 80% of the NI population. Each STW serves a wastewater drainage catchment area of variable sizes. Up to 68% of the NI Population is served by the 40 largest STWs. However, these larger STWs serve predominantly urban, as opposed to rural communities, and tend to be disproportionately located in eastern parts of NI. The integrated wastewater testing and geographic surveillance programme for SARS-CoV-2 in NI is led by Queen{\textquoteright}s University Belfast, funded by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) in collaboration with the Public Health Agency NI (PHA-NI). Appendix A. Supporting information Supplementary data associated with this article can be found in the online version at doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.127456. ",

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Understanding and managing uncertainty and variability for wastewater monitoring beyond the pandemic: Lessons learned from the United Kingdom national COVID-19 surveillance programmes

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

UN SDGs

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

UKRI GCRF/Newton Fund : Building an Early Warning System for community-wide infectious disease spread: SARS-CoV-2 tracking in Africa via environment fingerprinting- COVID-19

Cite this

Understanding and managing uncertainty and variability for wastewater monitoring beyond the pandemic: Lessons learned from the United Kingdom national COVID-19 surveillance programmes

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

UN SDGs

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Projects

UKRI GCRF/Newton Fund : Building an Early Warning System for community-wide infectious disease spread: SARS-CoV-2 tracking in Africa via environment fingerprinting- COVID-19

Cite this