This week, the EMCDDA is hosting three meetings in Lisbon on the topic of drugs and wastewater. Wastewater analysis is a rapidly developing scientific discipline with the potential for monitoring real-time population-level trends in illicit drug use. On 10 December, the results of an EMCDDA multicity project will be presented by an international consortium of researchers.
The project, launched in January 2012, generated comparable data covering 26 European cities, thanks to an agreed common sampling approach. On 11 and 12 December, the EMCDDA, in collaboration with the Norwegian Institute for Water Research and the Research Council of Norway, will hold a workshop on determining illicit drug use in populations through wastewater biomarker analysis . Finally, kicking off on 13 December, is the SEWPROF research project funded by the European Commission.
The project aims to develop inter-disciplinary research capability for the next generation of scientists working in the newly-emerging field of sewage epidemiology. The EMCDDA is an associated partner. For more see: www.emcdda.europa.eu/wastewater-analysis
