Water Quality Research and Waterborne Microbial Resources
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainability, Biodiversity and Conservation".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 17 June 2024 | Viewed by 1155
Special Issue Editor
2. Incheon Metropolitan City Institute of Public Health and Environment, Incheon 22320, Republic of Korea.
Interests: microbial resources; microbial diversity; water quality and safety; food safety; bacteria; fungi
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Water is essential for life. Water exists in the form of fresh-, sea-, and groundwater or sometimes forming an ecotone area. In each environment, water contains a unique microbial community and a unique distribution of organic/inorganic substances. Sometimes the environment surrounding water can be anthropogenically contaminated. As a result, water contains microorganisms or organic and inorganic substances that may be useful or dangerous to humankind. In this state, water is treated and produced as drinking water, used as a source of industrial water, included as an ingredient in food, or used in food processing. Often, unclean or inadequately purified water threatens food safety and causes public health problems such as food poisoning and infectious diseases. Therefore, monitoring through microbiological and chemical analysis is important. In particular, the water treatment process for ground and seawater other than tap water has a relatively short history. Therefore, the monitoring of them will also be important for the establishment of water treatment technology.
For the accurate monitoring of microorganisms, a culture-dependent or -independent method can be applied. Further, chemical analysis requires quality control. Since water is a common resource for people globally, countries should strive to apply international standards to water analysis techniques so that they can be recognized as equivalent between countries.
Meanwhile, a variety of natural microorganisms derived from water environments interact positively with higher organisms. They promote native vegetation flourishment, helping to preserve highly stressed ecotone areas—wetlands, tidal flats, dunes, and waterways. Further, they play an essential role in water treatment processes, removing harmful substances and circulating materials. As such, water and water environments are hotspots for microbial resources. Therefore, revealing microbial diversity or clusters in water environments is key to securing microbial resources.
In conclusion, the technologies used to analyze and monitor water and the water environment, research on the evaluation of the microbial diversity distributed in the water environment, and research into revealing the symbiotic microflora and diversity of plants and animals living in the water environment will ultimately be the pathway to securing food hygiene, public health, protecting human health, and securing important industrial resources that benefit the country and humanity.
This Special Issue, titled “Water Quality and Waterborne Microbial Resources”, encourages contributions from all around the world and welcomes original research papers or reviews including (but not limited to): (1) Monitoring chemical/microbiological quality of water or the water environment. (2) How does the microbial and chemical quality of water affect food and agricultural safety? (3) How does contaminated water affect the spread of infectious diseases to workers or consumers? (4) The distribution of microbiota or microbial resources in water or water environments. (5) Coexisting microorganisms of plants or animals that survive in water environment. Finally, (6) Discovering microbial resources relevant to climate change and nature heritage conservation. The articles published in this Issue will supplement the existing literature on the abovementioned aspects.
Dr. Jong Myong Park
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- microbial diversity (fungi, bacteria) in water, water environment, or ecotone
- environmental conservation using microbial resources
- water quality monitoring (ground, sea, and tap water)
- water quality and food/agricultural safety
- water quality public health (waterborne disease)
