Editorial: Water pollution and human health

The world is silently moving toward a critical scarcity of clean water. The papers in this Research Topic (RT) address this escalating global threat. Rivers, groundwater, and rainwater harvesting systems that were once treated as background infrastructure are now visibly failing to satiate the needs of booming populations. Communities that depend on these traditional water resources, often in places with the least capacity to monitor, test, treat, or build infrastructure to produce clean water, are the ones most affected and bearing the cost. Across 11 contributions spanning South Africa, Ethiopia, China, Peru, Germany, and beyond, the authors collectively address a fundamental question through diverse case studies: what are the most prominent water contaminants, how do they enter aquatic systems, and what are the implications for the people who drink, use, or depend on these water resources for agriculture and livestock?

Beginning with microbial contaminants, Potgieter et al. investigated wastewater-impacted rivers in South Africa's Limpopo province and found that pathogenic, extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)—producing Escherichia coli are widely distributed and represent a persistent public health concern rather than isolated contamination events. The study characterizes this as a “double threat” of virulence and antimicrobial resistance and emphasizes the urgent need for improved tertiary wastewater treatment and integrated surveillance systems. Douterelo et al. expanded this perspective by shifting the focus from merely describing pollution to predicting contamination events. Integrating rainfall events with DNA-based microbial source tracking of fecal pollution at river bathing sites provides in-depth knowledge of the nature of contamination. Authors demonstrated that storm surges, rather than steady-state baseline conditions, frequently drive contaminant levels beyond safe recreational thresholds. Zooming out from individual riverine systems to the population scale, Zhao et al. revealed that the global burden of diarrheal disease in older adults from 1990 to 2021 makes it clear that, even as overall incidence has fallen in many regions, the risk has not reduced by the same proportion. Interestingly, older adults remain disproportionately vulnerable to a disease often regarded as largely controlled.

The other Research Topic of papers we received in this RT shifts the focus from microbes to metals. Wang et al. trace the sources of heavy metal contamination in surface water and groundwater surrounding mining-affected areas, separating the background geological signal from the fraction attributable to extraction activity itself, which is indeed a distinction that matters enormously for anyone trying to assign responsibility for sustainable remediation strategies. Similarly, Norvivor et al. documented the ecological and human health risks associated with heavy metal contamination in the Nubui River. These studies clarify the challenges faced by rural and remote communities, where populations often have little choice but to rely on water containing elevated concentrations of toxic metals. Custodio et al. assessed sediment across Peru's lotic ecosystems and quantified potential ecological risks using approaches that provide valuable evidence for environmental management and policymaking. Likewise, Zeng et al. conducted an extensive hydrogeochemical survey of groundwater across Jilin Province, China, generating large-scale baseline data that will be crucial for future groundwater quality monitoring and health risk assessments.

Water pollution rarely remains confined to human health. Abosse et al. demonstrated that their assessment of cattle health risks in Ethiopia's Akaki River Catchment serves as a useful reminder of this fact. Livestock consuming the same contaminated water sources as local communities serve as both an exposure pathway and an early warning system for necessary reforms. The “One Health” framework adopted by the authors for this study, which treats human, animal, and environmental health as a single, interconnected system rather than as separate incidents, represents, in our view, where much of this field is heading and its future direction.

The remaining contributions are less concerned with diagnosing the problem and more with practical approaches for improving water quality. Alotaibi and Al-Khalaifah systematically reviewed solar water disinfection (SODIS), evaluating the potential and limitations of an affordable, low-cost, low-infrastructure technology for improving drinking water safety during periods of water scarcity. Caduff et al. compared different container designs coupled with UV-C LED disinfection systems, demonstrating that engineering design plays a critical role in determining whether laboratory-scale technologies can be successfully translated into practical household applications. Carpio-Vallejo et al. used a university campus in Hannover as a case study for rainwater management, showing that even well-resourced settings must actively manage the health risks associated with rainwater reuse rather than assuming such risks disappear amid water shortages.

Taken together, these studies resist a single overarching conclusion and, appropriately, are set against the backdrop of a broader perspective. Water pollution is not a single problem with a universal solution. It manifests as microbial contamination in one setting, heavy metal pollution in another, and a livestock-associated exposure pathway elsewhere. Across all studies, however, a common theme appears: the persistent need for reliable infrastructure to monitor, treat, and manage water quality. What connects these contributions is a shared insistence on measurement, for example, on going out and characterizing exactly what is in the water rather than assuming, and a willingness to work in developing regions of the world, where the health burden of water pollution is heaviest indeed, and research attention has historically been thinnest. Therefore, we are grateful to the authors for their valuable contributions to this RT and to the reviewers, whose constructive feedback strengthened each manuscript to be more precise about what its data can and cannot support. We hope this Research Topic advances our understanding of water pollution and human health, supports the development of more effective monitoring and mitigation and inspires future studies on contaminated water bodies faster to design and very hard to ignore.

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Footnotes

Edited and reviewed by: Tissa H. Illangasekare, Colorado School of Mines, United States