Standardizing data reporting in the research community to enhance the utility of open data for SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance

Jill S. McClary-Gutierrez; Zachary T. Aanderud; Mitham Al-faliti; Claire Duvallet; Raul Gonzalez; Joe Guzman; Rochelle H. Holm; Michael A. Jahne; Rose S. Kantor; Panagis Katsivelis; Katrin Gaardbo Kuhn; Laura M. Langan; Cresten Mansfeldt; Sandra L. McLellan; Lorelay M. Mendoza Grijalva; Kevin S. Murnane; Colleen C. Naughton; Aaron I. Packman; Sotirios Paraskevopoulos; Tyler S. Radniecki; Fernando A. Roman; Abhilasha Shrestha; Lauren B. Stadler; Joshua A. Steele; Brian M. Swalla; Peter Vikesland; Brian Wartell; Carol J. Wilusz; Judith Chui Ching Wong; Alexandria B. Boehm; Rolf U. Halden; Kyle Bibby; Jeseth Delgado Vela

doi:10.1039/D1EW00235J

Standardizing data reporting in the research community to enhance the utility of open data for SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance†

Jill S. McClary-Gutierrez,

^a Zachary T. Aanderud,^b Mitham Al-faliti,^c Claire Duvallet,

^d Raul Gonzalez,

^e Joe Guzman,^f Rochelle H. Holm,

^g Michael A. Jahne,

^h Rose S. Kantor,ⁱ Panagis Katsivelis,^j Katrin Gaardbo Kuhn,^k Laura M. Langan,

^l Cresten Mansfeldt,^m Sandra L. McLellan,

ⁿ Lorelay M. Mendoza Grijalva,^o Kevin S. Murnane,

^pqr Colleen C. Naughton,^s Aaron I. Packman,^t Sotirios Paraskevopoulos,

^u Tyler S. Radniecki,

^v Fernando A. Roman, Jr,

^s Abhilasha Shrestha,^w Lauren B. Stadler,

^x Joshua A. Steele,

^y Brian M. Swalla,^z Peter Vikesland,

^aa Brian Wartell,^ab Carol J. Wilusz,

^ac Judith Chui Ching Wong,

^ad Alexandria B. Boehm,

^o Rolf U. Halden,

^aeafag Kyle Bibby

^a and Jeseth Delgado Vela

*^c

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA

^b Department of Plant and Wildlife Sciences, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA

^c Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Howard University, Washington, DC, USA
E-mail: jeseth.delgadovela@howard.edu

^d Biobot Analytics, Inc., Cambridge, MA, USA

^e Hampton Roads Sanitation District, Virginia Beach, VA, USA

^f Orange County Public Health Laboratory, Newport Beach, CA, USA

^g Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute, University of Louisville, 302 E. Muhammad Ali Blvd., Louisville, KY, USA

^h U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Cincinnati, OH, USA

ⁱ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

^j Venthic Technologies, Athens, Greece

^k Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK, USA

^l Center for Reservoir and Aquatic Systems Research, Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA

^m Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

ⁿ School of Freshwater Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, USA

^o Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

^p Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology & Neuroscience, Louisiana State University Health – Shreveport, Shreveport, LA, USA

^q Department of Psychiatry, Louisiana State University Health – Shreveport, Shreveport, LA, USA

^r Louisiana Addiction Research Center, Louisiana State University Health – Shreveport, Shreveport, LA, USA

^s Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Merced, CA, USA

^t Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern Center for Water Research, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

^u KWR Water Research Institute, Nieuwegein, The Netherlands

^v School of Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA

^w Division of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

^x Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

^y Southern California Coastal Water Research Project, Costa Mesa, CA, USA

^z IDEXX Laboratories, Inc., Westbrook, ME, USA

^aa Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

^ab Department of Environmental Engineering, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, USA

^ac Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

^ad Environmental Health Institute, National Environment Agency, Singapore

^ae Biodesign Center for Environmental Health Engineering, Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

^af OneWaterOneHealth, Arizona State University Foundation, Tempe, AZ, USA

^ag AquaVitas, LLC, Scottsdale, AZ, USA

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 RNA detection in wastewater is being rapidly developed and adopted as a public health monitoring tool worldwide. With wastewater surveillance programs being implemented across many different scales and by many different stakeholders, it is critical that data collected and shared are accompanied by an appropriate minimal amount of meta-information to enable meaningful interpretation and use of this new information source and intercomparison across datasets. While some databases are being developed for specific surveillance programs locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally, common globally-adopted data standards have not yet been established within the research community. Establishing such standards will require national and international consensus on what meta-information should accompany SARS-CoV-2 wastewater measurements. To establish a recommendation on minimum information to accompany reporting of SARS-CoV-2 occurrence in wastewater for the research community, the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Coordination Network on Wastewater Surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 hosted a workshop in February 2021 with participants from academia, government agencies, private companies, wastewater utilities, public health laboratories, and research institutes. This report presents the primary two outcomes of the workshop: (i) a recommendation on the set of minimum meta-information that is needed to confidently interpret wastewater SARS-CoV-2 data, and (ii) insights from workshop discussions on how to improve standardization of data reporting.

This article is part of the themed collections: Recent Open Access Articles, Urgent communications in RSC Environmental Science journals and Environmental Science – coronavirus research

Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology

Standardizing data reporting in the research community to enhance the utility of open data for SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance†

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Standardizing data reporting in the research community to enhance the utility of open data for SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance

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