Stream biofilm responses to flow intermittency 

    Timoner Amer, Xisca (Date of defense: 2014-05-05)

    Streams experiencing a recurrent non-flow phase (i.e., flow intermittency) are characteristic of world regions with arid and semi-arid climates, where Mediterranean regions are part of. During non-flow streambed sediments, ...

    Effects of land uses and climate variability on the water quality of Mediterranean rivers: towards a regional vision of global change 

    Aguilera Becker, Rosana (Date of defense: 2015-03-10)

    This work investigated the effect of global change phenomena, particularly land use and climatic changes, on water quality patterns in Mediterranean rivers. A hybrid process-based and statistical model (SPARROW) was applied ...

    Fugitive green-house gas emissions during biological wastewater treatment: investigating sources and mitigation strategies in laboratory and full-scale systems 

    Rodríguez-Caballero, Adrián (Date of defense: 2015-03-20)

    The exponential increase of the atmospheric concentration of green-house gases due to human activities is responsible for the acceleration of global warming and climate change. Recently, scientific studies have pointed ...

    Towards better management of combined sewer systems. A methodology based on low-cost monitoring 

    Montserrat Royuela, Albert (Date of defense: 2015-07-03)

    In combined sewer systems (CSS) wastewater and stormwater flow through the same pipes. During severe rain episodes, the excess combined flow of untreated wastewater and stormwater is released out from the system through ...

    Sulfide and methane production in anaerobic sewer pipes: from microbial community characterization to effective mitigation strategies 

    Auguet Horta, Olga (Date of defense: 2016-07-13)

    Sewer systems transport wastewater from its source to treatment plants. During this transport, wastewater microorganisms colonize pipe walls and develop biofilms. The activity of microbial communities generates sulfide ...

    Analysis of chemotherapy drugs and related compounds in aquatic environment: removal, transformation and risk evaluation in eco-friendly and advanced technologies 

    Ferrando Climent, Laura (Date of defense: 2016-11-28)

    In order to evaluate the increasing environmental and human risk of anticancer drugs in the environment, more information needs to be gathered about their presence, their toxicity, bioaccumulation and persistence. In ...

    Controls on the dynamics of riverine dissolved organic matter: insights from a Mediterranean river network 

    Casas Ruiz, Joan Pere (Date of defense: 2017-05-31)

    In river networks, dissolved organic matter (DOM) constitutes the major pool of organic carbon, and plays a key role as energy source and modulator of toxic substances availability. In this thesis, Joan P. Casas-Ruiz and ...

    Greenhouse gas emissions from wastewater treatment processes: identifying triggering factors at laboratory and full-scale systems 

    Ribera Guàrdia, Anna (Date of defense: 2017-12-12)

    This thesis focuses on the study of the global green house gas (GHG) emissions from wastewater systems. Nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4) are the main GHG directly emitted from wastewater treatment plants (WWTP). In ...

    Factors affecting the distribution, abundance and diversity of uncultured archaeal groups in freshwater sediments 

    Compte Port, Sergi (Date of defense: 2018-07-03)

    Archaea are abundant in extreme environments but they are also a prevalent component of microbial communities in soils, marine or freshwater plankton and sediments. Many studies highlighted the prominent role of marine ...

    Influence of anthropogenic pollution on the prevalence, maintenance and spread of antibiotic resistance in aquatic microbial communities 

    Subirats Medina, Jessica (Date of defense: 2018-07-24)

    This Thesis demonstrates that microorganisms derived from wastewater are the 2/2 main contributors to antibiotic resistance (AR) in the environment. Once there, the background chemical contamination with antibiotic ...

    Elimination of micropollutants in conventional and novel nitrogen removal processes. A comparative assessment of diverse microbial communities capabilities 

    Kassotaki, Elissavet (Date of defense: 2018-09-07)

    Pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs) and endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) can pose a significant risk to the environment and human health, undermining prosperity. Current wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) cannot ...

    Transport, distribution and fate of emerging contaminants in wastewater-receiving rivers under multiple stress conditions 

    Mandarić, Ladislav (Date of defense: 2018-10-24)

    The main aim of this thesis was to establish a link between the urban origin of chemical contamination (e.g. PhACs) and other stressors, particularly associated to water scarcity (Chapter 1, 2, and 3). Research has been ...

    Integrated assessment of wastewater treatment plants and their receiving river systems in a global change context 

    Aymerich Blazquez, Ignasi (Date of defense: 2019-01-22)

    For a long time, there has been a need and an ambition to better understand the behavior of integrated systems by considering the whole urban water cycle, including wastewater transportation, wastewater treatment and the ...

    Characterization of dissolved organic matter in wastewater using liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry 

    Verkh, Yaroslav (Date of defense: 2019-01-28)

    Individual hazardous chemicals and substance mixtures with synergistic toxicity ef-fects occur in the dissolved organic matter (DOM) of wastewater and negatively im-pact human health. Yet a large number of chemicals and ...

    Resilience of water resource recovery facilities: a framework for quantitative model-based assessment 

    Juan García, Pau (Date of defense: 2019-02-04)

    The water sector is entering a period of uncertainty, as stressors such as climate change pose unknown risks to its infrastructure. Utilities need to build resilience to handle unpredictable changes, but the field of ...

    Evaluation and comparison of advanced treatment technologies to enhance the removal of pharmaceutical active compounds from wwtp secondary effluent 

    Sbardella, Luca (Date of defense: 2019-05-22)

    The presence of several pharmaceutical active compounds (PhACs) in water bodies has garnered increasing attention and worldwide concern. The effluents from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are one of the main sources ...

    Mass transport and fouling of novel forward osmosis thin-film composite membranes 

    Sauchelli Toran, Marc (Date of defense: 2019-07-18)

    Forward osmosis (FO) is known to be particularly efficient at treating impaired water sources with a high fouling potential. In the context of water reuse FO is being introduced as a robust pre-treatment process, usually ...

    Flow alteration and wastewater inputs effects on freshwater communities in Mediterranean rivers 

    Mor Roy, Jordi-René (Date of defense: 2019-09-19)

    Mediterranean rivers are characterized by high hydrological variability and heterogeneity of habitats, placing themselves amongst arid and temperate climates, and are associated with high biological diversity. On the ...

    Multiple stressor effects on river biofilm communities: from community composition to ecosystem processes using experimental mesocosms 

    Romero Blanch, Ferran (Date of defense: 2019-12-20)

    Human exploitation of river ecosystems, together with the increasing pressure that represents climate change, is posing rivers worldwide at risk. In rivers, microorganisms are ecologically very important. Most of ...

    Analysis, occurrence, fate and behaviour of emerging micropollutants in wastewater and the receiving environment 

    Gusmaroli, Lucia (Date of defense: 2020-05-25)

    The presence of xenobiotics - such as pharmaceutically active compounds, endocrine disrupting compounds and pesticides - in the aquatic environment has risen great environmental concern due to their high toxicity even at ...