Water Distribution System Vulnerability Assessments

Dear Colleagues,

This special issue of Water is to focus on the water infrastructure vulnerability and public health challenges that exist in the United States and other high-income countries. These infrastructure challenges are often most concentrated in areas where there are disadvantaged, underserved, or otherwise disenfranchised populations. The 2014 Flint water crisis brought international attention to the public health issues from the aging infrastructure in neglected urban area in locations similar to Flint, Michigan of the United States. This public health disparity also occurs in rural areas where residents experience wide-ranging failures in drinking water contamination from poor quality ground water or from sewage contamination. The topic of infrastructure vulnerability is an acute issue that remains hidden in many communities despite well-funded infrastructure in nearby affluent developments. This special issue invites papers that investigate the unique vulnerability of water infrastructure in the United States and other high-income countries. We seek solution-based papers that describe unique public health risks from infrastructure failures that occur in underserved areas. Papers should describe vulnerable populations and the contaminant exposure disparity due to inadequate policy, infrastructure and counter measures.

Prof. Ryan Gene Sinclair
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• drinking water
• environmental justice
• exposure science
• quantitative microbial risk assessment
• public health
• disadvantaged population
• UN SDG 6
• WASH infrastructure