Introduction of a nature-based sustainable technology to mitigate climate change-driven water pollution in rivers and lakes

Climate change is intensifying water stress around the world by disrupting the water quantity and quality of surrounding rivers, lakes, and streams. Sustainable water management to adopt climate change and improve global water security needs to focus on technology and innovation. A decentralized, low-energy and sustainable approach to meet both the water quality and quantity demands requires for combating global water scarcity under climate change conditions. The proposed technology is based on the principle that incorporation of nature-based solutions in technological process development can lead to a powerful tool for tackling the climate change-driven water pollution. This technology is an extension version of the patented technology on oil sands tailings water treatment (Canadian Patent 2,952,680). The nature-based entrapped cells submerged reactor is proposed as a sustainable on-site treatment option to manage surface water quality. The process consists of selection and entrapment of suitable bacterial communities found in the natural environment. The submerged reactor containing entrapped naturally occurring bacterial communities is used for improving on-site water quality under aerobic conditions. This nature-based and decentralized microbial technology provides practical solutions like on-site wastewater treatment for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal.