Pesticides applied on farmland are a source of pollution for the surrounding areas and in particular for local watercourses. During rainfall events pesticides are transported away from the area of application towards the rivers via surface runoff and attached to eroded sediment. Where such local watercourses supply water to drinking-water reservoirs, a variety of different pesticides ultimately end up in the reservoirs. However, the timing of pesticide arrival and their concentrations in the reservoir, vary throughout the year as a function of both rainfall variability and the timing and type of pesticide application on fields. Because at present there is no legislative requirement to record pesticide application on fields, companies such as Wessex Water have no information on the seasonal dynamics within the catchment that will affect the pesticide levels within their reservoirs. Hence, monitoring and managing pesticide levels within the reservoirs are a serious problem with important implications for public health. The project will adopt a field-based methodology in which the catchment hydrological and erosion responses will be characterised within a hierarchical approach. The study site will be the Durleigh catchment which is one of Wessex's lowland agricultural catchments and one which is most prone to pollution from pesticides. The first part of the work will involve a pilot study in which classes of persistent pesticides will be identified from water and sediment samples from the rivers in relation to classes found in the reservoir. Any existing available data on pesticides, land use and hydrology will also be collated and synthesised for a broader historical understanding of the pesticide dynamics within the catchment. The second part of the study will be carried out over 12 months and will involve spatial sampling of river water and riverbed sediment every two weeks. Wessex already carries out routine sampling of the reservoir water every two weeks. Both water and sediment samples will be analysed for the classes of pesticides identified in the pilot study and related to the reservoir pesticide levels. The third part of the project will build on the data collected in the previous year to identify catchment 'hotspots' of pesticide response and, over a 6-month period, carry out within those a more detailed characterisation of pesticide transport, particularly within individual rainfall events and at the individual farm system scale. A particularly innovative aspect of the project is the comparison between the dissolved and sediment-bound pesticide transport mechanisms in relation to catchment processes. Currently, Wessex Water has no information on the role of sediment-bound pesticides within their catchments but there are serious implications of the potential for this component, through desorption mechanisms, to act as a sustained source of pesticide pollution in the reservoir long after their initial mobilisation from the fields. The synthesis of these data will provide a much needed detailed understanding of catchment dynamics in relation to pesticide transport mechanisms and how these affect the pesticide dynamics within the Durleigh drinking-water reservoir. This understanding will lead to better management practices of the reservoir and ultimately to the design of mitigation measures at the farm level. The project combines different strands of investigation into an innovative and achievable course of doctoral training with great practical application to a pressing pollution and water-quality problem. The student will benefit from the different expertise offered by the supervisors both at the University of Bristol and Wessex Water. The student will benefit from establishing contacts with Wessex Water as well from the training opportunities offered at Wessex. The pesticide analyses of the water samples will be carried out in the Wessex labs and the student will have training in analytical techniques.

The widespread use of agrochemicals in catchments serving drinking water reservoirs has important implications for the water industry. It is well documented that increasing inputs of nitrogen and phosphorus from local catchments are correlated with increasing phytoplankton blooms (pea-soup water) in lakes and reservoirs. Frequently, these blooms are toxic to humans and their removal has increasing cost implications for the water industry. An additional problem comes from the widespread use of pesticides in agricultural catchments. In the UK, limits are drawn up for individual pesticides as specified in the EU Drinking Water Directive. However, less well known are the impacts to the biota within the reservoirs. It is possible that bacteria can rapidly utilise certain pesticides as organic substrates thereby reducing their impact in the water body. Alternatively, they may also break them down into substances that are potentially more toxic. An additional unknown is the impact of herbicides on the autotrophic communities within reservoirs. Herbicide impacts may be selective, promoting growth of the more tolerant members of the phytoplankton. Pesticides are known to cause lethal and sub-lethal effects on zooplankton communities. These organisms can control phytoplankton bloom development by grazing. Reduction in their grazing ability may affect bloom size. Identifying the key pesticides and their interactions with the organisms within reservoirs may lead to alterations in management practices and the potential to reduce the costs of water treatment. A combination of field and laboratory investigations will be undertaken to assess the scale of pesticide inputs and quantify their impacts to the biota both at the single species level and community level within food webs. The study site is Durleigh Reservoir which frequently suffers pollution events from pesticides and herbicides, in addition to nutrients, and is one of a network of drinking water reservoirs within the Wessex catchment experiencing similar impacts from agricultural intensification. The student will benefit from working with a team of scientists, each with expertise in one major group of aquatic organisms, and will receive training in a range of techniques designed to measure the effects of pesticides and/or herbicides on these organisms. Additionally, they will work alongside staff within Wessex Water, both on field site visits and within the laboratory and will gain insight into all aspects of the processing steps involved in the treatment of pesticides from raw water to tap water. Wessex has a regular sampling and analytical programme for water sampled in each of their reservoirs and these data will be provided, at no cost, including all of the pesticide analyses on water samples. The student will receive analytical methodological training whilst working in their laboratories. Results obtained from the intensive survey of one reservoir will have broader application within Wessex Water and will be high utility for other water companies and agencies e.g. the Environment Agency.

The world is facing some of the greatest challenges in terms of environmental welfare and energy supply. The latest EU directives on energy appliances dictate lower power consumption even on standby operation. At the forefront of publicity, Hollywood is driving towards greener movie productions. The Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP15) has failed to commit the largest fossil fuel consumer nations in limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Despite this there is still increased enthusiasm towards renewable energy production. This is clearly because fossil fuel combustion is costly and cutting back on carbon emissions is even more expensive; renewables on the other hand are freely available. A sustainable energy portfolio should include a range of carbon-neutral and renewable energy technologies. Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) represent vitally developing technology for sustainable energy production and waste treatment. They convert chemical energy of feedstock into electricity by using micro-organisms, which act as biocatalysts. MFCs are still in their early stages of development but with great potential to bring about innovation and become true alternatives to fossil fuel energy generation. The applicant has already demonstrated world first results (EcoBots and small scale-multi unit efficiency improvements) in this multi-disciplinary technological area, demonstrating that he is leading the way globally both in research and application of MFCs. Interest from the scientific and industrial communities is rapidly increasing, leading to collaborations with wastewater treatment industry and robotics. Investment both in this pioneering applicant and this burgeoning area is ripe. MFCs offer advantages such as simultaneous waste clean-up and electricity production; this Fellowship therefore directly addresses national and international priorities. Current research in the field is showing that individual units are thermodynamically limited, producing relatively low energy output levels, emphasising the need for scale-up. The applicant was the first to demonstrate (see attached Publications list Nos. 2, 5, 13) that more efficient energy harvesting takes place in small-scale MFC units and thus there is a natural drive for miniaturisation and multiple-unit stack development. More importantly, it is becoming apparent amongst the international MFC community that one of the technology's bottlenecks is the cathodic half-cell, which can be significantly improved using micro-algae. In the field of sustainable energy production , this proposal will integrate three major areas: (i) Multi-MFC unit stack; (ii) Self-sustainable cathodes; (iii) Waste clean-up.This Fellowship will both consolidate research findings and break into new areas, enabling cross-fertilisation of research results and thereby achieving developments faster than consecutive research projects would allow. It will develop the career of the applicant as a world leading researcher and budding academic, as well as developing the research skills of the research team he will build around him. This is built on the solid foundation of research to date. The Fellow will continue to collaborate with his mentors, ensuring his personal career development plan can be realised, maximising his potential as a research leader.The long term Vision of this Fellowship is twofold; 1) to develop MFCs into a mature sustainable energy technology with a direct application in everyday life that could change the way people think about energy and human waste; 2) to develop a team of researchers skilled in multi-disciplinary approaches led by the applicant who is already at the forefront of this research area globally.

In this CASE Studentship PhD project we aim to understand the drivers of elevated VOC production (Geosmin and 2-MIB) in drinking water reservoirs within the Wessex Water catchment. Episodic outbreaks of Geosmin and 2-MIB have occasionally, though not always, been associated with planktonic cyanobacterial blooms in Wessex reservoirs, but more recently, benthic communities have been identified as potential and significant sources of the VOCs, (Wessex Water, unpublished data). Focussing on three reservoirs and their associated catchments, we will analyse the distribution, transport and fate of these VOCs and their response to water treatment processes. The specific aims are: i) to isolate potential VOC producing microorganisms from the benthic and pelagic regions of the three reservoirs (and from the immediate catchment); ii) to examine intra-and interspecific variability in Geosmin and 2-MIB production under a range of experimental regimes; iii) to determine the degree of compartmentalisation between dissolved and particulate fractions of VOCs; iv) identify conditions that lead to the exudation of VOCs with a specific focus on the role(s) of viral lysis, protozoan and crustacean grazers, using isolated benthic and pelagic VOC-producing microorganisms.

Mitigating the rapid global spread of Covid-19 requires real-time data on community infection prevalence in order to guide targeted intervention measures on regional, national and global scales. Individual diagnostic testing is of paramount importance for short- and long-term management of the pandemic, but limits on capacity (both of kits and trained workers) mean that healthcare settings are prioritised over the community. Here we propose a novel supplemental low-resource approach for broad community-wide surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 infection prevalence. We aim for a real-time Covid-19 risk prediction platform for community-wide diagnostics via wastewater-based epidemiology (Figure 1). Disease markers present in domestic wastewater can reveal the health status of contributing population, and we propose that this includes the infection prevalence by SARS-CoV-2. Real-time spatiotemporal estimation of this novel coronavirus in urban water across several sites in South Africa (Cape Town) and Nigeria (Lagos) will provide a broad picture of community infection prevalence, even for asymptomatic cases, as well as the level of acquired immunity, thus identifying hotspots for priority testing, contact-tracing and quarantine and will provide more accurate projections of the spread of the virus and the infection fatality rate. As communities contribute directly to wastewater, we will be able to estimate true infection rate at the community level, including also asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic people. The virus loading levels will be used to establish status and time trends. This would enable rapid identification of hot spots for management via targeted intervention measures and potentially support important decisions regarding entry into and exit from 'lockdown' periods as well as focussed screening of selected communities.