Bacterial Biofilms

This book discusses the historical context, country experience, and best practices that led to eliminating infectious diseases from the WHO’s South-East Asia Region, such as malaria, lymphatic filariasis, yaws, trachoma, and mother-to-child HIV in the mid-twentieth and twenty-first century. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (3.3) targets to end AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and neglected tropical diseases and combat hepatitis, water-borne diseases and other communicable diseases by 2030. In this context, this book is of high significance to countries from the SEA region and around the globe. It helps create national strategies and action plans on infectious disease elimination and thus attaining SDG 3.3. This is an open access book.

Introduction: Sustainable water and wastewater services are critical to providing the American public with clean and safe water and helping ensure the environmental, economic, and social sustainability of the communities that utilities serve. Utilities across the country face tremendous challenges, such as aging infrastructure, an aging workforce, increasing mandates, and competing priorities within the communities they serve. The purpose of this document is to assist utility leaders with implementing proven and effective practices over time to improve their operations and move toward sustainability, at a pace consistent with their needs and the needs of their communities. It provides utility leaders with a cohesive structure to help them address various challenges proactively and with confidence. The practices described in this document reflect the lessons learned and the practical experience utilities have derived as they have improved their operations. A utility can use this document to identify specific opportunities for improvement and draw on the example practices to create an individualized “roadmap” to more sustainable operations.