While wastewater-based epidemiology has proven a useful tool for epidemiological surveillance during the COVID-19 pandemic, few quantitative models comparing virus concentrations in wastewater samples and cumulative incidence have been established. In this work, a simple mathematical model relating virus concentration and cumulative incidence for full contagion waves was developed. The model was then used for short-term forecasting and compared to a local linear model. Both scenarios were tested using a dataset composed of samples from 32 wastewater treatment plants and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) incidence data covering the corresponding geographical areas during a 7-month period, including two contagion waves. A population-averaged dataset was also developed to model and predict the incidence over the full geography. Overall, the mathematical model based on wastewater data showed a good correlation with cumulative cases and allowed us to anticipate SARS-CoV-2 incidence in one week, which is of special relevance in situations where the epidemiological monitoring system cannot be fully implemented.

This article presents a novel response methodology for the operational recovery of a drinking water network after an incident causes an interruption of service. The proposed optimization-based methodology allows computing the optimal set of interventions to be performed in order to mitigate, or even prevent, the impact of the incident on the network operation. Besides, a proof-of-concept scheme has been designed for the automatic generation of failure scenarios and the systematic implementation and validation of the proposed response methodology. Several results are presented to demonstrate the capability of the methodology to mitigate harmful incidents, as well as the performance improvements derived from the application of the obtained interventions.