We simultaneously determined the phylogenetic identification and substrate uptake patterns of sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) inhabiting a sewer biofilm with oxygen, nitrate, or sulfate as an electron acceptor by combining microautoradiography and fluorescent in situ hybridization (MAR-FISH) with family- and genus-specific 16S rRNA probes. The MAR-FISH analysis revealed that Desulfobulbus hybri...

Most biological systems employ visually acquired information for their locomotion. In the course of evolutionary history, the visual system of organisms has evolved to he adapted to the environment. As a consequence of this adaptation, biological systems often display highly efficient visual skills. This reasoning has motivated the development of a specific visual system, which serves the purpo...

The city of Toulouse with its separate sewer system is ideal for studying stormwater. However, during dry weather, the storm sewer also discharges water into the environment, and it is the impact of these discharges on annual pollution from storm sewer that is the object of this study. Samples have been taken from the outlets of two storm drains located in heavily and moderately urbanized areas...

It is widely recognised that flood risk needs to be taken into account when designing a storm sewer network. Flood risk is generally a combination of flood consequences and flood probabilities. This paper aims to explore the decision making in flood risk based storm sewer network design. A multiobjective optimization is proposed to find the Pareto front of optimal designs in terms of low constr...

This study describes the temporal and spatial variability of bacterial communities within a combined sewer system in England. Sampling was conducted over 9 months in a sewer system with intensive monitoring of hydraulic conditions. The bacterial communities were characterized by 16S rRNA gene-targeted terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis. These data were related to the hyd...

Adaptation has become an important aspect of robot design. The work here describes the perception and motion control of MAKRO an autonomous robot for sewer inspection from the point of view of MAKRO’s adaptation to specific features of the sewer environment. Two features are crucial for MAKRO’s adaptation. First, narrow sewer pipes connected into a unified system via junctions, compose a graph-...

Reinforced concrete pipe (RCP) has been one of the most common pipes for medium to large diameter utility systems including sanitary sewer, and storm drainage systems. RCP typically has superior structural properties combining high compressive strength from concrete and tensile strength from reinforced steel. RCP tends to deteriorate over time due to hydrogen sulfide (H2S) gas in sewage and man...

A practical algorithm for 3-D interpretation of images taken in a sewer by a robot-inspector is presented. Modern sewers made of concrete present regular circular structures originating at the pipe ends as well as at the joints of the pipe sections. These pipe ends and joints provide regular marks on the sewer images and can be used for their 3-D interpretation. The key idea of the paper is to ...

Moving objects equipped with locating devices can report their locations periodically to data stream sewers. With the pervasiveness of moving objects, one single sewer cannot support all objects and queries in a wide area. As a result, multiple spatio-temporal data stream management systems must be deployed and thus result in a sewer network. It is vital for sewers in the network to collaborate...

Methane formation and emission in sewer systems has not received as much attention as hydrogen sulphide formation. Through field measurements from two rising mains, with an average sewage temperature of 28.4 and 26.6 degrees C, respectively, at the time of sampling, this study shows that a significant amount of methane can be produced in sewer systems, and that this production is positively cor...