Fate of contaminants of emerging concern and antimicrobial resistance in urban wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs)

• “New” organic contaminants of emerging concern in wastewater
• Transformation products of organic contaminants
• Microbiome and resistome in wastewater
• Known and emerging pathogens in wastewater effluents
• Fate of non-cell associated antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in wastewater
• Assessment of antibiotic effects on ARGs persistence and dissemination at WWTP-relevant concentrations

Contaminants of emerging concern and antimicrobial resistance: From urban wastewater treatment plants to the environment 

• Behaviour, transmission and fate in receiving environments
• Uptake, translocation and metabolisation in crops
• Fate prediction using modeling approaches

Bioassays/tests to support urban treated wastewater quality management 

• Effect-based bioassays as a component of reuse schemes
• Whole Effluent Toxicity testing
• Standardization of sampling, analytical protocols, and use of different bioassays for common endpoints
• Stress measurements and effects related to ARGs dissemination
• Phytotoxic effects on crops irrigated with treated wastewater
• Effects on the nutritional value of crops irrigated with treated wastewater
• Human health aspects

Technologies to meet urban treated wastewater reuse characteristics

• Impact of WWTP technologies to address reuse challenges
• Disinfection processes and technologies to address reuse challenges
• Emerging technologies to address reuse challenges
• Large (real-scale) wastewater reuse project

Risk assessment and policy development 

• Data management and prioritisation
• Risk assessment: approaches, frameworks and sensitivity analysis
• Human- and environmental-based trigger values
• Determination of targets and cut-off values for qPCR-based diagnostic evaluation of ARGs in effluents
• Inclusion of molecular biological tools and bioassays in legislation
• International and national policy developments
• Communication strategies towards an improved risk assessment and policy development