TY - JOUR
T1 - Impact of sewer overflow on public health
T2 - A comprehensive scientometric analysis and systematic review
AU - Sojobi, Adebayo Olatunbosun
AU - Zayed, Tarek
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support from the Environment Conservation Fund ( ECF ) under grant number ECF/058/2019 and the Drainage Services Department (DSD) of the Government of Hong Kong for providing the required data and case study.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021
PY - 2022/1
Y1 - 2022/1
N2 - Sewer overflow (SO), which has attracted global attention, poses serious threat to public health and ecosystem. SO impacts public health via consumption of contaminated drinking water, aerosolization of pathogens, food-chain transmission, and direct contact with fecally-polluted rivers and beach sediments during recreation. However, no study has attempted to map the linkage between SO and public health including Covid-19 using scientometric analysis and systematic review of literature. Results showed that only few countries were actively involved in SO research in relation to public health. Furthermore, there are renewed calls to scale up environmental surveillance to safeguard public health. To safeguard public health, it is important for public health authorities to optimize water and wastewater treatment plants and improve building ventilation and plumbing systems to minimize pathogen transmission within buildings and transportation systems. In addition, health authorities should formulate appropriate policies that can enhance environmental surveillance and facilitate real-time monitoring of sewer overflow. Increased public awareness on strict personal hygiene and point-of-use-water-treatment such as boiling drinking water will go a long way to safeguard public health. Ecotoxicological studies and health risk assessment of exposure to pathogens via different transmission routes is also required to appropriately inform the use of lockdowns, minimize their socio-economic impact and guide evidence-based welfare/social policy interventions. Soft infrastructures, optimized sewer maintenance and prescreening of sewer overflow are recommended to reduce stormwater burden on wastewater treatment plant, curtail pathogen transmission and marine plastic pollution. Comprehensive, integrated surveillance and global collaborative efforts are important to curtail on-going Covid-19 pandemic and improve resilience against future pandemics.
AB - Sewer overflow (SO), which has attracted global attention, poses serious threat to public health and ecosystem. SO impacts public health via consumption of contaminated drinking water, aerosolization of pathogens, food-chain transmission, and direct contact with fecally-polluted rivers and beach sediments during recreation. However, no study has attempted to map the linkage between SO and public health including Covid-19 using scientometric analysis and systematic review of literature. Results showed that only few countries were actively involved in SO research in relation to public health. Furthermore, there are renewed calls to scale up environmental surveillance to safeguard public health. To safeguard public health, it is important for public health authorities to optimize water and wastewater treatment plants and improve building ventilation and plumbing systems to minimize pathogen transmission within buildings and transportation systems. In addition, health authorities should formulate appropriate policies that can enhance environmental surveillance and facilitate real-time monitoring of sewer overflow. Increased public awareness on strict personal hygiene and point-of-use-water-treatment such as boiling drinking water will go a long way to safeguard public health. Ecotoxicological studies and health risk assessment of exposure to pathogens via different transmission routes is also required to appropriately inform the use of lockdowns, minimize their socio-economic impact and guide evidence-based welfare/social policy interventions. Soft infrastructures, optimized sewer maintenance and prescreening of sewer overflow are recommended to reduce stormwater burden on wastewater treatment plant, curtail pathogen transmission and marine plastic pollution. Comprehensive, integrated surveillance and global collaborative efforts are important to curtail on-going Covid-19 pandemic and improve resilience against future pandemics.
KW - Covid-19
KW - Public health
KW - Scientometric analysis
KW - Sewer overflow
KW - Systematic review
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85111577255&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.envres.2021.111609
DO - 10.1016/j.envres.2021.111609
M3 - Review article
C2 - 34216613
AN - SCOPUS:85111577255
SN - 0013-9351
VL - 203
JO - Environmental Research
JF - Environmental Research
M1 - 111609
ER -
