Science-Based Policy Recommendations for Managing Emerging Pollutants: Protecting Water Quality for the Health of People and the Environment

Emerging water pollutants are a growing global concern due to their ubiquitous presence in water resources worldwide and their potential adverse effects on human health and ecosystems. Limited scientific understanding of sources of emerging pollutants’ emissions to water bodies and their pathways, behaviour, and fate in aquatic environments, as well as human health and ecological effects, is a significant hindrance in managing emerging water pollutants. With exceptions concerning PFAS/PFOS and microplastic beads, there are few regulations for emerging pollutants in national water and environmental policies, which results in a critical gap in safeguarding human health and aquatic ecosystems through effective prevention, reduction, and management strategies. This chapter presents a set of science-based policy recommendations for managing emerging water pollutants, particularly for the protection of aquatic ecosystems and groundwater resources, as well as through proper wastewater and waste management, including the circular economy approach and lifecycle management of pollutants. Policy recommendations are also proposed for managing priority emerging pollutants such as microplastics, nanomaterials, and trace chemicals. The policy recommendations emanate from key policy-relevant findings of research studies and scientific discussions presented at the UNESCO-IWRA International Conference on “Emerging Pollutants: Protecting Water Quality for the Health of People and Ecosystems,” which took place online in January 2023, gathering over 170 state-of-the-art research studies on wide-ranging topics related to emerging water pollutants.