Training young water professionals in leadership and transdisciplinary competencies for sustainable water management in India

Young water professionals (YWPs) have a critical role in ensuring how water resources will be managed to contribute towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. To address the challenges of climate change, population growth, and urbanization, YWPs require leadership skills, transdisciplinary competencies, technical knowledge, and practical experience. This article presents the India YWP training program, led by Western Sydney University and the Australia India Water Centre (AIWC), aimed at developing a cohort of skilled YWPs and nurturing the next generation of water leaders in support of India’s water reform agenda and the National Water Mission. The program engaged 20 YWPs, consisting of an equal gender representation, selected by the Ministry of Jal Shakti from various water management agencies and departments across India. The 11-month training program was designed to be transformative and interactive, and it used an online platform comprising online lectures, mentoring, and project-based learning facilitated by the AIWC team. The training methodology focused on engaged learning, incorporating online workshops, Situation Understanding and Improvement Projects (SUIPs), online group discussions, and mentoring. The SUIPs provided a platform for YWPs to work in pairs, receiving guidance from AIWC members, enabling them to develop practical skills and knowledge in realworld contexts. The program effectively enhanced participants’ capacities in project planning, design, implementation, and management, while fostering critical thinking and problem-solving skills by adopting transdisciplinary approaches. Furthermore, participants demonstrated improved leadership, project management, time management, and communication skills. The training helped YWPs to equip them with a holistic perspective and stakeholder-focused mindset to address diverse water challenges from a holistic and long-term standpoint

Effect of silver in severely nitrified chloraminated bulk waters

Chloramine has been widely used in many water utilities as a secondary disinfectant because of increased concern over disinfection by-products (DBPs) formation. However, its popularity has been affected due to microbial acceleration, which is traditionally believed to be by nitrifying organisms or their products such as nitrite and pH value which change substantially under nitrifying conditions. With the traditional belief in mind, the conventional approach to solve 'chloramine decay' was aimed at killing or flushing out nitrifiers. We have recently shown that either soluble microbial products (SMPs) released by microbes or changes in natural organic matter (NOM) characteristics under nitrified conditions could be responsible for the acceleration. With this new insight, a new control strategy was attempted by dosing silver at a concentration of 0.1 mg-Ag/L to the nitrified bulk waters obtained in a laboratory scale system. Accelerated chemical and microbial chloramine losses were significantly reduced after the addition of silver. These results are very promising for future applications

Major mechanism(s) of chloramine decay in rechloraminated laboratory scale system waters

Traditionally it is believed that nitrification was solely responsible for the widely observed chloramine loss under nitrifying conditions. On the contrary, recent results have shown that an unidentified agent (soluble microbial products or modified natural organic matter) chemically accelerates chloramine decay in rechloraminated nitrifying samples which were filtered to eliminate microbes. However, how those agents accelerate chloramine decay is not known. Mildly and severely nitrified samples were collected from a laboratory scale system and microbes were separated through filtration and then rechloraminated. To understand the mechanism, simple stoichiometry was employed. In all samples, rechloramination induced ammonia loss possibly by auto-decomposition, especially in the initial stages. In severely nitrified samples, accelerated auto-decomposition and nitrite oxidation were found to be the major mechanisms chemically accelerating the chloramine loss indicating that the agent did not demand appreciable chloramine. However, in the mildly nitrified water, a large discrepancy in chloramine demand what is explainable by stoichiomatye was seen. The natural organic matter (NOM) oxidation was suspected to be the dominant mechanism during the prolonged incubation of mildly nitrified samples. The identification of the agent is important as it highly accelerates chloramine decay

Effect of biofilms grown at various chloramine residuals on chloramine decay

Maintaining longer lasting disinfectant residual in a distribution system is highly important to prevent microbial re-growth and hence to deliver safe drinking water. However, various factors such as microbes present in bulk water, sediment, or attached to pipe wall and biofilms accelerates the chloramine decay. Among them, biofilms are a major factor in accelerating chloramine decay as they provide a habitat for the microbes. Thus, this study investigates the effect of biofilms in terms of chloramine decay in the distribution system. Biofilms were grown under various chloramine residuals and different ages of biofilms were investigated by subjecting them to batch tests. Experimental results repeatedly showed that chloramine decay due to biofilms is independent of its growth condition, particularly for different chloramine residuals

Evidence of soluble microbial products accelerating chloramine decay in nitrifying bulk water samples

The discovery of a microbially derived soluble product that accelerates chloramine decay is described. Nitrifying bacteria are believed to be wholly responsible for rapid chloramine loss in drinking water systems. However, a recent investigation showed that an unidentified soluble agent significantly accelerated chloramine decay. The agent was suspected to be either natural organic matter (NOM) or soluble microbial products (SMPs). A laboratory scale reactor was fed chloraminated reverse osmosis (RO) treated water to eliminate the interference from NOM. Once nitrification had set in, experiments were conducted on the reactor and feed waters to determine the identity of the component. The study showed the presence of SMPs released by microbes in severely nitrified waters. Further experiments proved that the SMPs significantly accelerated chloramine decay, probably through catalytic reaction. Moreover, application of common protein denaturing techniques stopped the reaction implying that the compound responsible was likely to be a protein. This significant finding will pave the way for better control of chloramine in the distribution systems

Ranking pipes in water supply systems based on potential to cause discoloured water complaints

A novel concept to rank pipes based on the potential (risk) to cause discoloured water complaints when broken is presented. A fixed re-suspension velocity for all sediments was used previously to model sediment transport. However, there is always a risk of sediment re-suspension and discoloration, if the velocity caused by hydraulic disturbance is greater than the conditioning velocity- the maximum daily velocity historically experienced in a pipe before the disturbance. In a full scale system, five pipes of different diameters (99 - 222 mm) and locations (loop or open) were simulated to break (break main flow at 10L/s) and the hydraulic response was analysed using hydraulic software. The total affected length of the pipes where velocity was more than the conditioning velocity was used for ranking. In general, breakage of a smaller diameter pipe (100 mm diameter) caused more widespread disturbance. If proven in the field, the hydraulic software could be modified to rank pipes, making it easy for utilities to prioritise the pipe to replace or pay more attention

Heterotrophic bacteria isolated from a chloraminated system accelerate chloramine decay.

This work comprehensively demonstrates the ability of heterotrophic bacteria, isolated from a chloraminated system, to decay chloramine. This study non-selectively isolated 62 cultures of heterotrophic bacteria from a water sample (0.002 mg-N/L nitrite and 1.42 mg/L total chlorine) collected from a laboratory-scale reactor system; most of the isolates (93.3%) were Mycobacterium sp. Three species of Mycobacterium and one species of Micrococcus were inoculated to a basal inorganic medium with initial concentrations of acetate (from 0 to 24 mg-C/L) and 1.5 mg/L chloramine. Bacterial growth coincided with declines in the concentrations of chloramine, acetate, and ammonium. Detailed experiments with one of the Mycobacterium sp. isolates suggest that the common mechanism of chloramine loss is auto-decomposition likely mediated by chloramine-decaying proteins. The ability of the isolates to grow and decay chloramine underscores the important role of heterotrophic bacteria in the stability of chloramine in water-distribution systems. Existing strategies based on controlling nitrification should be augmented to include minimizing heterotrophic bacteria