Optimising decentralised low-cost wastewater infrastructure by managing the microbes

在这里，我们认为，分散的和使用点的水基础设施和技术对于在全球南部快速增长的城市提供健康和经济可持续性至关重要。此外，我们主张，与发展中国家合作伙伴就权力下放进行研究，有可能推动不可持续的集权西方做法发生根本性变化，因此将是互惠互利的。慈善机构和政府机构在开发新的废水处理技术方面投入了大量资金，许多技术现已接近市场准备就绪。泰国亚洲理工学院正在试验一套由市场驱动的新型分散式生物废水处理技术，这些技术是由比尔和梅琳达·盖茨基金会资助开发的。这些技术是有效的，但它们的表现各不相同。有证据表明，这是由技术核心的微生物种群的可变性造成的，人们对此知之甚少。我们将与AIT合作，对微生物处理群落的结构和功能进行表征和优化。其目的将是通过完善AIT设计并提供客户可以在发生故障时部署的快速低技术补救策略来降低故障风险。

Here we argue that decentralised and point of use water infrastructure and technologies are fundamental in delivering health and economic sustainability in rapidly growing cities of the Global South. Further we advocate that research on decentralisation with developing world partners has the potential to catalyse radical change in unsustainable centralised western practices and thus will be mutually beneficial. There has been significant investment by charities and government agencies in developing novel wastewater treatment technologies and many are now close to market readiness. The Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand are piloting a suite of novel market-driven decentralised biological wastewater treatment technologies that were developed with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funding. The technologies work but their performance is variable. There is evidence that this is caused by variability in the microbial populations at the heart of the technologies, which are poorly understood. We will work with AIT to characterise and optimise the structure and function of the microbial treatment communities. The aim will be to mitigate the risk of failure by refining the AIT designs and offering rapid low-tech remediation strategies that can be deployed by customers should failures occur.