The wastewater treatment process (WWTP) plays a critical role in providing clean water. However, emerging and predominately unregulated, bioactive chemicals such as steroids and pharmaceutical drugs are being increasingly detected in surface waters that receive wastewater effluent. Although present at low concentrations, their inherent bioactive nature has been linked to abnormalities in aquatic organisms and there are also water reuse and human health implications. As part of the urban water cycle, the WWTP is the gatekeeper to the surface waters e.g. rivers. Pharmaceuticals enter wastewater treatment from inappropriate disposal of unused drugs to the sink/toilet or via landfill. Prescribed or illicit drug use also has the inevitable consequence of being metabolised in the human body (to parent, Phase I / II metabolites) and excreted in urine, which subsequently enters the WWTP. Coupled with naturally produced and excreted bioactive steroids, the challenge for wastewater treatment is that it was never designed to remove these bioactive chemicals and is inefficient. Evaluating the prevalence and fate of a steroid or pharmaceutical in the WWTP is challenging as human enzymatic metabolism causes the bioactive chemical to exist in multiple forms - parent, Phase I and Phase II metabolites. Phase II metabolites predominate urine excretion and are the starting products entering the wastewater environment. They therefore act as the precursors to the biotransformations that take place during treatment and produce the Phase I and/or parent forms of the bioactive chemical. Before treatment technologies can be developed and evaluated for pharmaceutical and steroid removal in the WWTP, our understanding needs to improve on how the different bioactive chemical forms behave, and their relationships to each other. This means identifying the biotransformations between metabolites and parent forms. To achieve this requires a move from targeted analysis - we analyse for what we expect to see - to develop methods that are non-targeted and search for Phase II metabolites and their associated Phase I / parent forms. Drawing on inspiration from metabolomics approaches used in the biosciences, the aim of this proposal is to develop a novel non-target method to identify bioactive chemical Phase II metabolites and their biotransformation products in wastewater. Knowledge of Phase II metabolite occurrence and fate in the wastewater environment is important in assessing the impact of user behaviour, process and environmental factors or bioactive chemical parent removal. This will inform on WWTP efficiency, provide data for optimising models that predict pharmaceuticals and steroids, and evaluate environmental risk.

The most abundant form of litter in the marine environment is plastic, and the negative and detrimental consequences of plastic debris on fish, reptiles, birds and mammals are well documented. The hard surface of waterborne plastic provides an ideal environment for the formation of biofilm for opportunistic microbial colonisers; however, our knowledge of how microorganisms interact with microplastics and alter the dispersal behaviour of marine plastics in the environment is a significant research gap. Biofilm at the interface between the plastic surface and the environment has been termed the 'Plastisphere', and although plastics are extremely resistant to decay, variability in composition determines their specific buoyancy and surface rugosity, which will dictate the extent of microbial colonisation and their ability for long distance dispersal. Furthermore, because plastic debris can persist in the marine environment longer than natural substrates, e.g. feathers and wood, it offers an opportunity for the wider dissemination of pathogenic and harmful microorganisms. Microplastics from clothes, cosmetics and sanitary products are now common constituents of sewage systems and they frequently bypass the screening mechanisms designed to remove larger waste items from being exported to coastal waters. Microplastics entering aquatic systems from waste water treatment plants (WWTPs) come in close contact with human faeces, hence providing significant opportunity for colonisation by faecal indicator organisms (FIOs) and a range of human bacterial pathogens. Importantly however, there have never been any studies investigating the ability of enteric viruses binding to microplastics (or binding to the biofilm on the plastic surface), and this now needs critical evaluation in order to understand this potentially novel mechanism for the environmental dispersal of enteric viruses. Furthermore, there is growing evidence that the plastisphere can promote gene exchange, and so determining the potential of plastisphere biofilms for providing the surface for anti-microbial resistance (AMR) gene transfer is of the utmost importance. There is currently a lack of fundamental understanding about the mechanisms by which microorganisms, particularly pathogenic bacteria and viruses, can "hitchhike" on microplastic particles and be transported to beaches, bathing waters, shellfish harvesting waters and high benthic diversity zones. Consequently, it is not yet possible to determine the risk from these potential pathways, or establish environmental monitoring guidelines for informing future policy or environmental regulation. Therefore, the novelty of this project is to quantify the processes that are occurring within the plastisphere, and understand the potential for the vectoring of pathogenic viruses and bacteria. Previous research on chemical co-pollutants present on plastics often fails to consider the likely impacts of plastisphere communities. Microplastics in the environment are potential vectors for these chemicals, which often desorb when ingested by marine species, and can accumulate in the food chain. Microbes in the plastisphere may either mitigate this problem through biodegradation, or enhance it by increased biofilm binding; however, most laboratory-based studies are carried out with pristine non-colonised plastics, and ignore the pivotal role the plastisphere plays on defining the risk of microplastics in the environment. By understanding the multi-pollutant and multi-scale effects of microplastics, the "Plastic Vectors Project" will help to establish a more accurate risk assessment of microplastics by taking into consideration the effects of harmful plastic-associated microbes together with chemical co-pollutants. Therefore, the "Plastic Vectors Project" aims to quantify the significance and function of microbes in the 'plastisphere', and will deliver feasible solutions for reducing these multi-pollutant risks

Infrastructure is vital for society - for economic growth and quality of life. Existing infrastructure is rapidly deteriorating, the rate of which will accelerate with increasing pressures from climate change and population growth, and the condition of the large majority of assets is unknown. Stewardship of infrastructure to ensure it continuously performs its function will be a colossal challenge for asset owners and operators. The performance of new infrastructure assets must be monitored throughout their life-cycle because they are being designed and constructed to withstand largely unknown future conditions. The UK must be better prepared to face these grand challenges by exploiting technology to increase understanding of asset deterioration and improve decision making and asset management. This research is central to EPSRC's priority area of Engineering for Sustainability and Resilience. The goal is to transform geotechnical asset management by developing new, low-cost, autonomous sensing technologies for condition appraisal and real-time communication of deterioration. This new approach will sense Acoustic Emission (AE) generated by geotechnical assets. AE is generated in soil bodies and soil-structure systems (SB&SSS) by deformation, and has been proven to propagate many tens - even hundreds - of metres along structural elements. This presents an exciting opportunity that has never been exploited before: to develop autonomous sensing systems that can be distributed across structural elements (e.g. buried pipes, pile foundations, retaining walls, tunnel linings, rail track) to listen to AE - analogous to a stethoscope being used to listen to a patient's heartbeat - and provide information on the health of infrastructure in real-time. The idea to use AE sensing to monitor geotechnical assets in this way is novel - it is expected to lead to a disruptive advance in monitoring capability and revolutionise infrastructure stewardship. AE has the potential to increase our understanding of how assets are deteriorating, which could lead to improved design approaches, and to extract more information about asset condition than existing techniques: not only deformation behaviour, but also, for example, changes in stress states, transitions from pre- to post-peak shear strength, and using correlation techniques it will be possible to locate the source of AE to target maintenance and remediation activities. AE sensing will also provide real-time warnings which will enable safety-critical decisions to be made to reduce damages and lives lost as a result of geotechnical asset failures. The number of asset monitoring locations required per unit length to achieve sufficient spatial resolution will be less than other monitoring techniques, and significantly lower cost. Piezoelectric transducers, which sense the AE, are now being developed at costs as low as a few tens of pence per sensor - this recent technological advance makes this research timely. AE sensors could be installed during construction to monitor condition throughout the life-cycle of new-build assets (e.g. HS2), and retrofitted to existing, ageing assets. This will be the most fundamental and ambitious investigation into the understanding of AE generated by SB&SSS yet attempted. The findings will mark a major leap forward in scientific understanding and our ability to exploit AE in novel asset health monitoring systems. The fellowship aims to develop robust diagnostic frameworks and analytics to interpret AE generated by geotechnical assets. This will be achieved using a powerful set of complementary element and large-scale experiments. The outcomes will be demonstrated to end-users and plans will be developed with collaborators for: full-scale field testing with in-service assets to demonstrate performance and benefits in intended applications and environments; and implementation in commercial products that could have significant societal and economic impact.

Through this Fellowship, I aim to develop fundamental scientific methods for the design, optimisation and control of next generation resilient water supply networks that dynamically adapt their connectivity (topology), hydraulic conditions and operational objectives. A dynamically adaptive water supply network can modify its state in response to changes in the operational conditions, performance objectives, an increase in demand and a failure. This is a new category of engineering (cyber-physical) systems that combine physical processes with computational control in a holistic way in order to achieve dynamic adaptability, resilience, efficiency and sustainability. Water utilities are facing an increasing demand for potable water as a result of population growth and urbanisation. Cities are reaching unprecedented scale and complexity and the reliable provision of safe water is a global environmental security challenge. New technologies and knowledge are urgently needed to meet environmental, regulatory and financial pressures. Recent advances in sensor and control technologies, wireless communication and data management allow us to gain extraordinary insights into the operation of complex water supply networks and their control. Novel simulation and optimisation methods are required to make use of the new knowledge about the dynamics of large-scale water supply systems and the ability to control their operation in order to improve resource and asset utilisation. In the course of pioneering and leading an extensive programme of applied research in dynamically adaptive water supply networks, I have identified fundamental mathematical and engineering challenges of how such complex systems should be designed, retrofitted, modelled and managed in order to address multiple operational applications either simultaneously or sequentially. For example, the network management can be optimised to reduce leakage, improve water quality and enhance incident response. Furthermore, developing a robustly scalable simulation and control system is extremely challenging due to the complexity of the computational tasks for medium to large-scale water supply systems. This research programme will investigate, develop and validate a novel analytical and robust computational framework for the concurrent design, operation and control of adaptive water supply networks that dynamically configure their connectivity (topology), hydraulic conditions and operational objectives. The proposed framework should simultaneously optimise the design (e.g. placements of advanced network controllers and monitoring devices) and the operational control (e.g. the optimal selection of functions and settings for the valves and pumps). This co-design approach also considers the hydraulic dynamics, uncertainties, environmental changes and the development of mathematical optimisation methods for network operability and controllability in order to manage the operation of complex water supply systems efficiently, intelligently and sustainably. This is an ambitious and transformative research programme that requires solving numerous problems spanning several disciplines in water systems engineering, applied mathematics, control engineering, cyber-physical systems and sensors research. The Fellowship will provide me with a unique opportunity to dedicate most of my time to develop, validate and champion into practice the design and control methods for dynamically adaptive, resilient and sustainable water supply networks.

The management of water quality in rivers, urban drainage and water supply networks is essential for ecological and human well-being. Predicting the effects of management strategies requires knowledge of the hydrodynamic processes covering spatial scales of a few millimetres (turbulence) to several hundred kilometres (catchments), with a similarly large range of timescales from milliseconds to weeks. Predicting underlying water quality processes and their human and ecological impact is complicated as they are dependent on contaminant concentration. Current water quality modelling methods range from complex three dimensional computational fluid dynamics (3D CFD) models, for short time and small spatial scales, to one-dimensional (1D) time dependent models, critical for economic, fast, easy-to-use applications within highly complex situations in river catchments, water supply and urban drainage systems. Mixing effects in channels and pipes of uniform geometry can be represented with some confidence in highly turbulent, steady flows. However, in the majority of water networks, the standard 1D model predictions fall short because of knowledge gaps due to low turbulence, 3D shapes and unsteady flows. This Fellowship will work to address the knowledge gaps, delivering a step change in the predictive capability of 1D water quality network models. It will achieve this via the strategic leadership of a programme of laboratory and full-scale field measurements, the implementation of system identification techniques and active engagement with primary users. The proposal covers aspects from fundamental research, through applications, to end-user delivery, by providing a new modelling methodology to inform design, appraisal and management decisions made by environmental regulators, engineering consultants and water utilities.