| Title |
A Study on the Role of Public Sewage Treatment Facilities using Wastewater-based Epidemiology |
| Authors |
박윤경 ( Park Yoonkyung ) ; 윤상린 ( Yun Sang-lean ) ; 윤영한 ( Yoon Younghan ) ; 김이호 ( Kim Reeho ) ; ( Nishimura Fumitake ) ; ( Sturat L. Simpson ) ; 김일호 ( Kim Ilho ) |
| DOI |
https://doi.org/10.15681/KSWE.2023.39.3.231 |
| Keywords |
Infectious pathogens; Sewage; Sewage Treatment Facility; Wastewater-based Epidemiology |
| Abstract |
Public sewage treatment facilities are a necessary infrastructure for public health that treat sewage generated in cities and basin living areas and discharge it into rivers or seas. Recently, the role of public sewage treatment is receiving attention as a place of use of wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE), which analyzes human specific metabolic emissions or biomarkers present in sewage to investigate the environment to which the population is exposed in the water drain. WBE is mainly applied to investigate legal and water-law drug use or to predict and analyze the lifestyle of local residents. WBE has also been applied to predict and analyze the degree of infectious diseases that are prevalent worldwide, such as COVID-19. Since sewage flowing into public sewage treatment facilities includes living information of the population living in the drainage area, it is easy to collect basic data to predict the confirmation and spread of infectious diseases. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a new role of public sewage treatment facilities as an infrastructure necessary for WBE that can obtain information on the confirmation and spread of infectious diseases other than the traditional role of public sewage treatment. In South Korea, the sewerage supply rate is about 95.5% and the number of public sewage treatment facility is 4,209. This means that the infrastructure of sewerage is fully established. However, to successfully drive for WBE, research on monitoring and big-data analysis is needed. |