Dr. Francis L. de los Reyes III
​https://ccee.ncsu.edu/people/fldelosr/​​​

The current infrastructure for water and sanitation (wastewater) in the U.S. and around the world needs fundamental transformation. Globally, billions of people still lack access to clean water and sanitation, a basic human right and a prerequisite for well-being. The century-old centralized treatment and management system model needs to be re-examined as it can be unsustainable, inequitable, and highly vulnerable to disruption. A clear vision of the water and wastewater (sanitation) infrastructure of the future is needed. We posit that this vision should be infrastructure that is sustainable, resilient, and equitable, meeting the needs of all communities, especially those that are underserved. This vision is a departure from the centralized system paradigm, as conventional centralized infrastructure is not a viable solution for many underserved communities. In this vision, household systems, cluster systems, and hybrid systems (mixture of centralized and decentralized) in small communities will play an important role, as a transition is made to this new integrated socio-technical system.

Imagining, designing, and building these systems will require a new kind of environmental engineer: one who is not only strong in fundamental engineering principles, but also comfortable with working with large datasets, and most importantly, working with communities. A new engineering training approach should focus on: (1) Genuine Engagement and Collaborative Design with communities; (2) Technologies at Different Scales to provide safe, reliable, cost-effective, and energy-efficient solutions for different sized systems; and (3) Systems Integration to identify solutions that are sustainable (in terms of cost, environmental impact, and equity), resilient to extreme events, and acceptable and affordable to users.