Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

This paper considers the recent (re-)emergence and consolidation of wastewater monitoring in public health governance. Methodologically, we draw on valuation studies and critical policy analysis and use empirical data from a case study in Austria.

Paper long abstract

This paper considers the recent (re-)emergence and consolidation of wastewater monitoring in public health governance. Specifically, this project studies the (1) (re)emergence of the use of wastewater monitoring in the context of COVID-19, (2) the political and techno-scientific challenges that spokespeople of wastewater epidemiology have encountered, including regulation of data collection and its use for public health monitoring as well as political decision making, and (3) current ambitions to expand its use in the context of a largely unregulated field. Using what we call a multi-sited policy valuography, the analysis is based on an Austrian case study, using élite interviews to examine the ways in which scientists, public health officials, and decisionmakers have come to value wastewater in new ways during the COVID19 pandemic. Specifically, I examine how wastewater epidemiology and practices of sampling, measurement, prediction, and monitoring became “the right tool for the job” and what “jobs” are being envisioned for the future, including bioindicators related to what are considered healthy lifestyles. Finally, I explore the recent EU Directive and how, if at all, it invokes environmental, political, and social issues as matters of (European) concern.