Aerosol exposure assessment during reclaimed water utilization in China and risk evaluation in case of <i>Legionella</i>

doi:10.1007/s11783-021-1516-1

Front. Environ. Sci. Eng.

2022, Vol. 16

Issue (7) : 95 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-021-1516-1

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Aerosol exposure assessment during reclaimed water utilization in China and risk evaluation in case of Legionella

Menghao Chen, Liangliang Shi, Gang Liu, Xiaojin Wu, Yun Lu(

)

State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, State Environment Protection Key Laboratory of Microorganism Application and Risk Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

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Abstract

• The Chinese population exposure habits were surveyed.

• The risks of three scenarios of reclaimed water utilization were evaluated by QMRA.

• The risks were markedly higher than the threshold (10⁻⁴ pppy) recommended by WHO.

• The risks were age-, educational background-, region- and gender-specific.

Reclaimed water utilization provides an effective way to alleviate water shortage. However, the residual pathogens in the recycled water like Legionella, could be spread into the air as aerosols through water-to-air transmission process. Inhaling the aerosols by the people nearby increases their susceptibility to diseases. For estimating the health risks associated with the potential exposure of airborne Legionella emitted from the urban use of reclaimed water in China, nationwide questionnaire was designed to investigate the exposure habits of Chinese population in different scenarios. Quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) served as the suitable explanatory tool to estimate the risk. The results indicated that annual infection probability of populations exposed to Legionella for three scenarios, 0.0764 (95% CI: 0.0032–0.6880) for road cleaning, 1.0000 (95% CI: 0.1883–1.0000) for greenfield irrigation, 0.9981 (95% CI: 0.0784–1.0000) for landscape fountain, were markedly higher than the threshold recommended by WHO (10⁻⁴ per person per year (pppy)) according to the concentration distribution of Legionella in the reclaimed water. An age-, educational background-, region- and gender-specific data in annual infection probability also showed different tendencies for some subpopulations. This study provides some detailed information on the health risks from the water reuse in China and will be useful to promote the safe application of reclaimed water in water-deficient areas.

Keywords Legionella QMRA Reclaimed water Aerosol Water reuse

Corresponding Author(s): Yun Lu

Issue Date: 01 December 2021

Cite this article:

Menghao Chen,Liangliang Shi,Gang Liu, et al. Aerosol exposure assessment during reclaimed water utilization in China and risk evaluation in case of Legionella[J]. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng., 2022, 16(7): 95.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/fese/EN/10.1007/s11783-021-1516-1
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fese/EN/Y2022/V16/I7/95

Tab.1 Demographic feature of the questionnaire participants (n (%))

Tab.2 Exposure duration distribution of greenfield irrigation for different groups

Tab.3 Exposure duration distribution for different groups of LF

Tab.4 Exposure frequency distribution of three scenarios (/year)

Parameters	Description	Distribution: Values			Unit
Parameters	Description	RC	GI	LF	Unit
C_water	concentration of Legionella in water	TFNs: (4.52,13.54,172.85)			GC/mL
ω	saturated water vapor	Constant value:30.3			mL/m³
RMV	Respirator minute volumes	Constant value			L/min
$ψ − ψ 0$	relative humidity increments	Random values from Fig. S2	Random values from Fig. S3	Random values from Fig. S3	%
t	time	TFNs: (0.8,6.7,20)	Random values from Table 4	Random values from Table 4	s
r	exponential model Parameter	Constant value: 0.0599			–
k	water-to-air partitioning coefficient	Constant value (Fig. S4)			–
f	Exposure frequency	Random values from Table 4			/year

Tab.5 Exposure parameters summarized for calculation

Tab.6 Annual infection probability of groups exposed to Legionella for three scenarios

Fig.1 The risk comparison of different subpopulations (gender (A), age (B), education (C) and region (D)) in the three exposure scenarios, road cleaning (RC), greenfield irrigation (GI) and landscape fountains (LF). NR denotes north region, SER denotes south-east region, SR denotes southern region, WR denotes western region, CU denotes college undergraduate, HS denotes high school, JH denotes middle school, PO denotes Postgraduate. Sharing different letter shows the difference is significant with p<0.01.

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