MICROBIAL ECOLOGY AND WATER ENGINEERING (MEWE) SPECIALIST GROUP

The International Water Associations (IWA) Microbial Ecology and Water Engineering (MEWE) Specialist Group was founded in 1988 under the name Activated Sludge Population Dynamics (ASPD) and the inaugural ASPD meeting was held in Brighton, UK in July 1988 at the biennial conference of the IAWPRC. While the original mission of the group was to provide a platform for researchers to engage with microbial ecology in wastewater treatment systems, the group's activities have gradually expanded to assess the ecology of microbial communities across the engineered water cycle. This recognition of expansion of the Specialist Group's activities was consolidated through a formal name change from ASPD to MEWE in July 2009. The goal of the MEWE Specialist group and the MEWE conferences are to promote the rational and effective engineering of systems in the water cycle populated by open microbial communities using emerging technologies and concepts of microbial ecology. MEWE seeks to do this through research, dissemination, outreach and dialogue with practitioners all over the world. A central topic of interest to MEWE is to understand and control the relationship between microbial community composition and the function and performance of engineered water systems. MEWE also aims to foster greater collaboration with industry, in order to develop novel, technology-oriented microbe-driven solutions and provide the most benefit to the water sector in a quick and effective way. MEWE is also a strong supporter of the link between the IWA and the International Society of Microbial Ecology (ISME) via the Biocluster. Connect with the MEWE Specialist Group.