Issue 11, 2022

Wastewater research and surveillance: an ethical exploration

Abstract

The current COVID-19 pandemic has given wastewater research a huge impetus. While wastewater research has some promising applications, there are as yet no well-developed ethical guidelines on how and under what conditions to use wastewater research. The current perspective paper aims to explore the different ethical questions pertaining to wastewater research and surveillance and to provide some tentative guidelines on the desirability of different types of applications. This paper shows that wastewater research offers interesting possibilities, but that legal regulation and ethical guidelines are still lacking, while there are ethical risks involved. The perspective indicates that it is important to look beyond the regulation of data collection and to shift the focus to the question how the analysis and use of wastewater data can be supervised.

Graphical abstract: Wastewater research and surveillance: an ethical exploration

Article information

Article type
Perspective
Submitted
17 feb. 2022
Accepted
02 sep. 2022
First published
05 sep. 2022
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Environ. Sci.: Water Res. Technol., 2022,8, 2431-2438

Wastewater research and surveillance: an ethical exploration

N. Doorn, Environ. Sci.: Water Res. Technol., 2022, 8, 2431 DOI: 10.1039/D2EW00127F

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