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Water Quality and Health

Water running over rocks, Glen Etive. Photo credit: Jeremy Walker. Source: Getty Images
Wild swimming in a freshwater reservoir. Photo credit: K Neville. Source: Getty Images

CREW’s Water Quality and Health theme focusses on providing high quality science knowledge regarding:

  • Water, wastewater and drainage
  • Human and environmental health
  • Epidemiology
  • Contaminants in the environment

The projects undertaken within this theme support policy and regulation areas including:

  • Drinking Water Directive
  • Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive
  • Water Framework Directive
  • One Health Framework

Recent research published within this thematic area includes:

• Emerging contaminants: informing Scotland’s strategic monitoring and policy approaches to substances of increasing concern - the aim of this project was to inform, prioritise, and coordinate actionable monitoring and policy-based approaches to identify, assess, and mitigate risks from substances of increasing concern to Scotland’s water environment.
• Mitigating climate change impacts on the water quality of Scottish standing waters - this project explored adaptive strategies to mitigate climate change impacts on Scottish standing waters, focusing on reducing the likelihood of worsening algal blooms as water temperatures continue to rise.

Key legacy projects published within this thematic area include: