Engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) are found in many consumer products including cosmetics and personal hygiene goods. Nanomaterials are also found in additives for diesel fuels to improve fuel efficiency. These materials will come into contact with the environment, for example, if they are washed down the sink, or if they become airbourne, however we currently have no idea about whether they are hazardous or not and regulations are not in place to control their release or treatment. The life cycle of ENMs in the environment is not known and there exist large knowledge gaps in this field. The reason for this is that the concentrations and properties of ENMs in consumer products are largely unknown (or not indicated by companies). Very little is known about the behaviour or lifetime of ENMs in the water effluent and soils as it's extremely hard to monitor this behaviour, as we do not have the tools to detect these tiny materials in very complex environments. This project will apply new and sophisticated experimental characterization tools for predicting potential environmental risks associated with the use of selected consumer products incorporating ZnO, Ag, TiO2 and CeO2 ENMs. An overarching goal is to evaluate which are the critical charateristics of ENMs (size, chemistry etc.) which may cause damage to the environment through two of the most predominant environmental pathways - from the effluent of a waste water treatment plant to waters and also from sewage sludge to soils. This information will ultimately to provide guidance to regulators on policy and to industry about how to design "safe" classes of ENMs and mitigate against risk, while avoiding overregulation. Avoiding overregulation is vital, as we do not want to re-experience what happened e.g. at Fukushima, where 160,000 people were forced to relocated without need, since the risk presented to regulators and the government was too high. This has since resulted in 1,599 deaths, as the displaced residents are suffering from health problems, alcoholism and high rates of suicide. Our team has an extensive track record in developing unique techniques to track these nanomaterials in complex environments and will apply their knowledge of this field to tackle this extremely pertinent concern. The projects experimental approaches include both physical science experiments and toxicological approaches, generating results to improve our limited understanding of the potential environmental hazards. The results generated from the project will also contribute to our very limited knowledge on various aspects of the fate, transport, bioavailability, and ecotoxicity of ENMs and will allow us to answer questions such as "can toxic doses of ENMs reach organisms or are these concentrations negligible at the point of exposure to the organism?", "if they are toxic, is it possible to re-engineer ENMs such that they do not present a risk", "do the nanomaterials dissolve or change their chemistry in the environment and ultimately detoxify and how does this vary between the different nanomaterials?", "which nanomaterials present the greatest risk and how do we minimise the environmental and health risks of these hazardous materials without overly precautionary regulations". This multifaceted strategy will make a major development in understanding the fate of ENMs in the environment to guide policy regulation whilst avoiding unnecessary overregulation, and ultimately guide the safe development of these materials for future commercial exploitation.

Eutrophication of freshwaters is a serious problem in many places worldwide, causing marked changes in the biota. N&P enrichment of the Norfolk Broads saw a shift from a clear water system dominated by charophytes, macrophytes and a diverse invertebrate fauna in the 1940s, to one dominated by phytoplankton and an impoverished invertebrate fauna by the 1980s. Eutrophication-driven biodiversity loss is a concern in many UK reservoirs which are important sites for conservation (SSSIs and SACs). Furthermore, the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) demands good ecological status of all European surface waters by 2015. Eutrophic reservoirs also present a considerable problem for water purification, supply and consumption. Algae can block microstrainers and sand filters, reducing throughput of water and sometimes requiring the plant to be taken out of service. The smallest algal cells can pass through the filters, and decompose in the distribution pipes. Some breakdown products, notably mucopolysaccharides, chelate with iron and aluminium that is added to the treatment, leading to increased metal levels passing to the supply. Fungi and invertebrates can feed on the resultant biofilms, leading to taste and odour problems. Cyanobacterial blooms can produce toxins (e.g. microcystin) that pose a risk to human health. The primary routes to nutrient removal include a) dredging of sediment and dumping on land to remove sediment-locked phosphorus; b) planting of enlarged reedbeds; c) direct stripping of algae through microfiltration; d) chemical dosing (e.g. iron or copper sulphate) to strip phosphorus through coagulation. All of these techniques are expensive, many are environmentally harmful, and most are unreliable in their performance. Recent innovations have shown that harvesting filter-feeding organisms such as the blue mussel (Mytilus edulis) that feed on phytoplankton may be a sustainable method for producing food of high nutritional value while simultaneously recycling nutrients from sea to land. Simple nutrient budgets for N and P suggests that mussel farming could offset the need for some sewage treatment plants with marine outfalls (Lindahl et al., 2005). The aim of this project is to test whether the broadscale cultivation of filter-feeding biota in UK reservoirs may offer a similarly efficient, cost-effective tool for improving reservoir water quality for potable supply and to enhance biodiversity. Qualitative observations in a number of UK reservoirs suggest increasing abundance of filter-feeders in recent years has driven improved water quality. The project will focus on the contributions that sponges, bryozoans and invasive bivalves (zebra mussels) can make to reservoir management. By working in collaboration with Anglian Water's (AW) Innovation team, the student will investigate the identity, growth rates, biomass and nutrient content (N&P) of filter-feeders that naturally attach to different settlement rigs. To account for thermal stratification and the effects of UV radiation, depth patterns will also be investigated. To investigate the effects of faecal and pseudofaecal deposition, sediment and macroinvertebrate communities will be compared between paired replicates beneath rigs and control sites. Close collaboration with AW at three reservoirs known to contain many zebra mussels will ensure that rig design is optimal. The student will visit a marine mussel cultivation programme and liaise with feedstuff and fertiliser manufacturers to identify possible end-use of harvested material. AW will also train the student in invertebrate and algal collection and identification. The project will finish with a cost-benefit analysis, considering harvest frequency, possible revenue or disposal costs, N&P budgets compared with alternatives (e.g. chemical phosphate stripping), ecological benefit and design options. A risk assessment will be made relating to the spreading of non-native species.

This fellowship will provide important tools and knowledge to deliver the Government's ambitious Industrial Strategy. Specifically, it will develop, test, apply, and promote innovative appraisal and evaluation approaches for understanding public-private-partnerships (PPP) in food-energy-water-environment Nexus domains, with a particular focus on infrastructure. PPP in these areas might be for energy plants, waste management infrastructure, reservoirs, or water treatment plants. Partnerships of these types, for infrastructure and other purposes, are a key delivery mechanism for many of the Industrial Strategy's goals. The Strategy repeatedly makes clear the importance of PPP in delivering innovation, growth, and infrastructure. The fellow will develop frameworks for both appraising (i.e. assessment before a PPP has started) and evaluating (i.e. understanding if and why a PPP has been a success or not) PPP in food-energy-water-environment Nexus domains. These frameworks will set out the important questions to address when studying PPP, the appropriate methods to use to answer them, and the data which will be needed. These frameworks will be published freely and actively shared with appraisal and evaluation communities in the UK and beyond, and experts in PPP, infrastructure, and other relevant areas. The fellow will also deliver a critical review of the types of PPP used currently and in the past. The development of the frameworks will also be supported by regular interaction with those who will use them, to ensure their needs are accounted for. A key part of this will be a project within the fellowship with Anglian Water and the South Lincolnshire Water Partnership (the SLWP is a group of public, private and third sector organisations collaborating to plan the management and use of water resources in the South Lincolnshire Fens and adjacent areas). This project will explore old and new models of PPP that the partnership could adopt. It will help the group explore options to better share risk and reward across the partnership, improve project delivery, and maximise benefits. The project will also explore options for updating water abstraction licensing strategies as part of Defra's 'Water Abstraction Plan' initiative (the partnership is a pilot catchment in this initiative). The project will serve to underpin the development of the frameworks through the understanding it will generate of user needs, and the space it will allow for testing the approach to be used. The fellowship also has ambitious plans for delivering unique career development and training to the fellow via: (i) a distinctive and comprehensive mentoring programme (including mentors from industry, government, and academia); (ii) a shadowing and short-term placement plan at industry partners such as Anglian Water; and (iii) an intensive professional development and training programme including training provided by the University of Surrey, but also industry and government partners. All of this work will be underpinned by the novel methodological approach of the fellow's host, the Centre for the Evaluation of Complexity Across the Nexus, which combines the tools and thinking provided by Complexity Science and the food-energy-water-environment Nexus approach, with social research methods and effective policy evaluation approaches. The fellowship will deliver a range of outputs, the most important of which will be both an academic journal paper and a freely available report on each of the following topics: (i) reviewing types of PPP; (ii) appraising PPP; and (iii) evaluating PPP. The appraisal and evaluation reports will each go through two iterations of development, to allow the time for meaningful input from users between iterations.

Treatment of wastewater is an essential process that is performed in all parts of the world. Each one of us typically produces more than 200 litres of wastewater per day. What happens to this wastewater? In an industrialised country like Britain the wastewater is collected for treatment and is then discharged into either a river or a coastal region. The treatment ensures that our rivers are not transformed into toxic soups and that most of the coastal waters remain safe for swimming. Presently our water treatment systems operate well to remove dangerous microorganisms and remove most of the organic and solid materials. Some components are more difficult to remove, such as nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. These nutrients cause damage to natural water systems such as rivers and coastal waters, as they encourage unwanted microbial growth, such as algae. This can damage the ecology of these waters and transform clear waters into green microbial soups. If a wastewater treatment facility is designed and operated in a particular manner, microorganisms (bacteria) in these systems can be encouraged to take up the phosphorus (P) and remove it from the wastewater. This is called biological P removal. It is the future aspiration of modern governments (e.g. the EU) that wastewater treatment facilities are improved and operated for this sustainable biological P removal. There are in fact many treatment facilities that already operate for biological P removal around the world. However, the performance of the biological systems is sometimes variable, and improvements in the performance and reliability would result in savings in the operation and construction of these systems. To achieve improvements in the biological systems we need to be able to understand how the bacteria carry out the P removal. There have been many investigations to gain understanding of these systems over the past 35 years. However, many of these investigations are flawed as they are studying the wrong bacteria, the ones that grow easily in the laboratory, and not the ones that grow well in the wastewater treatment systems and perform the P removal. Thankfully, modern methods to analyse DNA and protein directly in these systems are now being used to gain understanding of what the bacteria are doing. By analysing the DNA directly in the system we can now identify the bacteria important for the P removal. This has been a recent important achievement. Recently, the US government has invested heavily into understanding the bacteria of these systems, as they have obtained large amounts of DNA sequence from P removing systems (this is somewhat similar to whole genome sequencing programmes, such as the sequencing of the human DNA). This information will inform us of the genes that are present in these systems. It is important now to study the proteins of these systems. Proteins are produced by the bacteria, and are the molecules involved in carrying out the work, such as the reactions that result in the P removal. In our laboratory we operate small-scale wastewater treatment reactors that are performing biological P removal. A main part of this study is to analyse the proteins that are produced by the bacteria as they carry out the P removal. In these laboratory reactors we can alter the P removal performance and observe how the levels of the different proteins may vary. With this approach we will associate particular proteins with the biological P removal process. This information will enable us to put together an improved picture that explains how the bacteria are carrying out the P removal. This is a very important process for the water companies that treat the wastewater. Engineers and microbiologists are very interested to improve the understanding and details of the bacterial process, as they strive to develop strategies to improve the biological P removal performance in the wastewater treatment systems.

A global survey showed that nearly 10 million people could die each year as a result of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) if the situation is left unchanged. The UK is at the forefront of the global fight against AMR and setting the vision to contain and control AMR by 2040. With reference to the World Health Organisation (WHO) AMR action plan, the global AMR surveillance programme is conducted to understand trends, monitor interventions and develop empiric treatment guidelines for AMR. However, in the water sector, this AMR surveillance effort mainly focuses on conventional treatment stages and does not include nature-based solutions (NbS) infrastructures. Defra's 25-Year Environment Plan, the Water Industry's National Environment Programme, and the Environment Agency 2025 Plan have created a unique opportunity to consider constructed wetlands (CWs) as NbS to deliver wastewater treatment with the provision of environmental and societal co-benefits. All water utilities have deployed their strategies to further promote CWs in sewage works. Therefore, understanding if CW, as an emerging preferred green approach for tertiary treatment in wastewater treatment plants, can act as the final safeguard of natural waters to mitigate such risks while maintaining the contribution of co-benefits is crucial. The experience and lessons learned from the global AMR action could significantly facilitate the current missing NbS focus area on AMR surveillance. Partner Prof Walsh has worked with the WHO on the AMR surveillance programme and the European Joint Programme with a specific focus on AMR. Her expertise and experience will strengthen this project team with key knowledge of the occurrence, transmission, and removal mechanisms of AMR. The AMR investigation in NbS is recently getting attention but suffers from a lack of international-scale assessment with a limited dataset. Partner Dr Carvalho is working on the EU NATURE project to evaluate AMR removal in different CWs from mainland Europe, and the findings will be shared with this project. In this project, PI Dr Lyu will conduct the first field survey in the UK to collect evidence from four different applied CWs in England and Wales with the support of two industrial partners (Anglian Water and Welsh Water). Together with available datasets from the literature and the project partners' network, this project will conduct an international comparative study of AMR removal in CWs as NbS for wastewater treatment. Moreover, the team will also assess the undervalued contribution of reactive oxygen species and indicate adaptations of CWs toward promoting rhizosphere-activated free radicals to oxidise AMR. Ultimately, this project aims to establish a unique collaborative partnership between international academics and industrial practitioners, through sharing experiences, discovering knowledge gaps, exploring technology innovation, and supporting evidence-based policymaking, toward developing a resilient wastewater treatment infrastructure based on NbS to mitigate the spread of AMR.