Wastewater facilities play a vital role producing clean water, removing nutrients, generating renewable energy, and extracting other valuable bio-based materials from wastewaters.

While these systems have been engineered to withstand varying environmental factors to an extent, the study finds they are increasingly being put under extreme stress.

Using instrument data from operational monitoring systems provided by Southern Water and Thames Water, it found dynamic stressors, including higher rainfall intensity and extended dry periods, could be linked to pollution events.

The researchers said that the best way to avoid contamination, is to gain a better understanding of how events that stress the water network manifest, in order to give water companies an extended reaction time to events and try to reducing the impact on infrastructure.

Timothy Holloway, lead author of the paper, said: “Improving asset and infrastructure resilience is a significant challenge...