Wastewater research and surveillance: an ethical exploration

• Published in: Environmental science water research & technology Vol. 8; no. 11; pp. 2431 - 2438
• Main Author: Doorn, N
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Royal Society of Chemistry 27.10.2022; The Royal Society of Chemistry
• Subjects: Chemistry; COVID-19; Data collection; Ethics; Guidelines; Pandemics; Questions; Surveillance; Wastewater
• ISSN: 2053-1400; 2053-1419
• DOI: 10.1039/d2ew00127f

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. This article provides an ethical exploration of wastewater research surveillance, incorporating insights from data ethics, public health ethics, research ethics, and environmental and water ethics.