Water and Waste Water

Water is one of our most important resources. However, the quantitative and qualitative availability of water is under considerable pressure, both from climate change and changes in land use, as well as from anthropogenic pollution and nutrient inputs. All systems of the water cycle, from streams, lakes and oceans to groundwater, drinking water extraction and wastewater treatment, are also habitats for aquatic microorganisms. Through their growth and metabolic activity, they play a central role in controlling water quality. Aquatic microorganisms can also be associated with hygiene problems, e.g. in drinking water supplies. 

The Special Group Water and Wastewater deals with the microbiology of the water cycle. Its aim is to pool and network the broad expertise in aquatic microbiology among VAAM members and to raise awareness of this through exciting symposia and scientific communication. Our mini-symposia, as part of the VAAM annual conferences, regularly cover aquatic microbiological topics of outstanding public relevance. The Special Group is one of the longest-standing Special Groups within the VAAM and was recently reorganised and confirmed in January 2025 with the successful election of a new team of spokespersons.

In addition to spokesperson Tillmann Lüders, a groundwater and biofilm microbiologist, the recruitment of Sara Kleindienst as the new co-spokesperson, who heads the Stuttgart teaching and research sewage treatment plant at her chair, has once again ensured the traditionally wide range between basic and applied research in the Special Group. The broad public relevance of water as a resource will thus continue to be successfully represented within the VAAM.

On topics relating to the microbial ecology of the water cycle, there is also close coordination with the VAAM Special Group Environmental Microbiology.