{"id":4014,"date":"2016-10-17T14:31:48","date_gmt":"2016-10-17T18:31:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=4014"},"modified":"2025-10-18T16:40:59","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T20:40:59","slug":"water-security","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/water-security\/","title":{"rendered":"Water Security"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Water Security\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Every 15 seconds, a child somewhere in the world dies from a preventable waterborne disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Globally, 1.1 billion people lack access to clean drinking water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Canada, rural and remote communities, especially in the North, frequently lack clean water and adequate wastewater treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To help address these challenges at home and abroad, Carleton Prof. Banu \u00d6rmeci<\/a> has been chosen to serve as the first Jarislowsky Foundation Chair in Water and Global Health<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Water is essential \u2014 it is life,” says \u00d6rmeci, who leads an innovative and internationally recognized research program on wastewater and biosolids treatment in Carleton\u2019s Civil and Environmental Engineering Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Water
Banu \u00d6rmeci, a professor in Carleton\u2019s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
and the Canada Research Chair in Wastewater Treatment Engineering<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Water security:
\nA major public health issue<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

“If you don\u2019t treat wastewater properly, you start contaminating drinking water, and that can kill people. This is a major public health issue, and it\u2019s very meaningful that the Jarislowsky Foundation has decided to support research in this area. It\u2019s an important field \u2014 you can help save lives.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The five-year endowed chair, launched with a $2-million contribution from the Montreal-based foundation<\/a>, will allow \u00d6rmeci to focus on several ongoing and new projects, including novel clean technologies for recovering resources such as energy and nutrients from wastewater and sludge; low-energy and low-cost technologies for drinking water and wastewater treatment in rural and\/or remote regions; pathogen disinfection in drinking water and wastewater; chemical and nanoparticle treatment; and several networking and community-building initiatives to bolster Carleton\u2019s expanding role as an international leader in water research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Carleton has a distinguished track record in the field of groundwater research and developing multidisciplinary solutions to community and global issues,” says Foundation President Stephen Jarislowsky, CEO of one of Canada\u2019s largest and most successful investment management firms. “Water is increasingly a critical health and environmental issue in Canada and around the world, and the foundation is pleased to partner with the university, its faculty and its students in tackling this critical challenge.”<\/p>\n\n\n

[wide-image image=”4022″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The value of fundamental
\nand applied research<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After joining Carleton in 2005, \u00d6rmeci was appointed a Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Wastewater Treatment and Public Health Engineering in 2007. She is passionate about both fundamental and applied research, and is currently working on an NSERC-funded project with collaborators in France to develop real-time monitoring tools for sludge treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Water
Junjie Gu and Jie (Peter) Liu of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u00d6rmeci is also active in China, partnering with a pair of Carleton engineering colleagues, Junjie Gu<\/a> and Jie Liu<\/a>, on a project supported by the Ontario-China Research and Innovation Fund<\/a> to explore supercritical water oxidation as part of the process to treat wastewater and sludge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She is working with Carleton\u2019s Canada-India Centre for Excellence<\/a>, looking to identify Canadian water and wastewater treatment technologies and companies that could be used in India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And she is the chair of the International Water Association<\/a>\u2019s Sludge Management Group, a role that sends her to conferences around the world to help execute global initiatives that advance biosolids science, technology and management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Jarislowsky Chair will propose innovative solutions to address a universal need,” says Rafik Goubran<\/a>, dean of the research-intensive Faculty of Engineering and Design<\/a>. “By considering the engineering, environmental, public policy and health implications of developing new processes and technology, Prof. \u00d6rmeci will ensure that we are serving the global community in the best possible manner.”<\/p>\n\n\n

[wide-image image=”4025″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From global to local<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u00d6rmeci is also engaged in the local community. She was part of the delegation that represented Carleton at the recent Ontario Universities\u2019 Fair, serves on Carleton\u2019s Board of Governors, is deeply involved in WISE (Women in Science and Engineering<\/a>), does outreach programs with high school students and, amid her busy research schedule, remains dedicated to teaching and mentorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the commercial front, \u00d6rmeci has several patents that have led to new treatment technologies, including an automated system to measure polymer concentrations in real time and optimize the “dewatering” process, which removes water from sludge before it is released into the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This technique could also be applied to drinking water, because chemicals are used to aggregate solids and make them easier to remove from drinking water, but the concentration of these chemicals must be monitored and remain within safe parameters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00d6rmeci is also the director of Carleton\u2019s Water Research and Microbiology Lab<\/a>, part of the university\u2019s Front Door initiative<\/a>, which is designed to provide access to the university\u2019s research expertise and infrastructure to external partners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It\u2019s import for us to help develop sustainable and appropriate solutions to the world\u2019s water challenges,” says \u00d6rmeci, noting that, for example, some promising technologies aren\u2019t effective in cold or remote communities. “We need to develop the right technology for the right location. Sometimes that means simplifying things.”<\/p>\n\n\n

[wide-image image=”4023″]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every 15 seconds, a child somewhere in the world dies from a preventable waterborne disease. Globally, 1.1 billion people lack access to clean drinking water. In Canada, rural and remote communities, especially in the North, frequently lack clean water and adequate wastewater treatment. To help address these challenges at home and abroad, Carleton Prof. Banu […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[13,31],"cu_story_tag":[1918,1926],"class_list":["post-4014","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","hentry","cu_story_type-research-discovery","cu_story_type-sustainability","cu_story_tag-faculty-of-engineering-and-design","cu_story_tag-international"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/4014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/4014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98453,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/4014\/revisions\/98453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=4014"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=4014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}