Healthy drinking water.

英国水工程师在建立现代清洁饮用水范例方面发挥了关键作用。从1804年苏格兰佩斯利的第一个慢砂过滤厂到1905年英国林肯的第一个水氯化装置；两个多世纪以来，英国水工程师一直处于提供清洁饮用水的前沿。然而，在这段漫长的时间里，“清洁”水的概念仍然没有改变。考虑到目前为止开发的所有主要水处理技术都集中在两个目标上：去除污染和杀死微生物。这两个目标的实现虽然具有挑战性，但被认为足以提供安全的饮用水。重复工程应用于这一古老的理念已经扼杀了创新，并带来了数十年的自满，这种自满依赖于监管压力来触发技术发展，而没有反思“安全”水本身是否是合适的最终目标。该项目建议将“安全”饮用水的旧模式转变为渴望生产和供应“健康”饮用水的模式。这将通过开发技术和水管理战略来实现，利用自然产生的微生物向客户的水龙头提供（具有生物活性的）健康饮用水。具体而言，该项目将开发两种不同的方式，有益地利用饮用水中的微生物群落。首先，该项目将探索一种有益菌群的工程组装，该菌群由天然存在的微生物组成，可用于在水处理厂精确杀死病原体，并在供水系统中充当保护屏障，从而消除对化学消毒的需要。第二，利用基因组学技术和人类微生物组数据库的最新突破，识别饮用水中可能对人类健康有益的微生物。这些信息将用于开发在饮用水处理厂培养这些微生物的工程方法，并促进它们有效地输送到客户的水龙头。这两种方法都包含在有益于饮用水生物工程的更大视野中，有可能为饮用水工业的研究和创新设定新的方向，也可能显著改变公共卫生。首先，通过消除对化学消毒的需要，这项研究将为未来全面无化学饮用水工业铺平道路。第二，确定对人类健康有益的饮用水微生物将导致我们对饮用水在公共健康和福祉中的作用的看法发生根本变化。它将为水务行业提供一个新的框架和一套原则，以建立未来的水务基础设施。

UK Water Engineers played a critical role in establishing the modern paradigm of clean drinking water. From the first slow sand filtration plant in Paisley, Scotland in 1804 to the first water chlorination facility in Lincoln, England in 1905; UK Water Engineers have been at the forefront in the provision of clean drinking water for over two centuries. Yet over this extended period, the idea "clean" water has remained immune to change. Consider the fact that all major water treatment technologies developed to date focus on two objectives: remove contamination and kill microorganisms. The fulfilment of these two objectives - as challenging as it might be - is considered sufficient for the provision of safe drinking water. Iterative engineering applied to this centuries old idea has stifled innovation and ushered in decades of complacency that has relied on regulatory pressures to trigger technology development, without reflection on whether "safe" water itself is the appropriate ultimate goal.This project proposes to transform the old paradigm of "safe" drinking water to one that aspires to produce and supply "healthy" drinking water. This will be accomplished by the development of technologies and water management strategies that utilise naturally occurring microbes to deliver (biologically active) healthy drinking water to the customer's tap. Specifically, this project will develop two distinct ways of beneficially utilising microbial communities in drinking water. First, this project will explore engineered assembly of a beneficial microflora consisting of a cocktail of naturally occurring microbes that can be used to kill pathogens with precision at the water treatment plant and act as a protective barrier in the water supply system, thus eliminating the need for chemical disinfection. Second, the latest breakthroughs in 'omic technologies and databases on human microbiome will be used to identify microorganisms in drinking water that can be of potential benefit to human health. This information will be utilised to develop engineering approaches to cultivate these microbes in the drinking water treatment plant and facilitate their effective delivery to the customer's tap.Both of these approaches, embedded within the larger vision of engineering beneficial drinking water biology, have the potential to set a new direction for research and innovation in the drinking water industry and could also significantly transform public health. First, by eliminating the need for chemical based disinfection, this research will pave the way for comprehensively chemical free drinking water industry of the future. Second, the identification of drinking water microbes that are beneficial for human health will lead to radical change in our perceptions about the role of drinking water in public health and well-being. It will provide the water industry with a new framework and set of principles on which to build the water infrastructure of the future.