Be part of Europe’s leading wastewater conference

12 December 2025
Press Release

EWWM Call for Abstracts – Submission Deadline 30 January

The Call for Abstracts for the 2026 European Wastewater Management (EWWM) Conference is now officially open. This is your opportunity to showcase your research, innovations, and practical solutions to over 400 wastewater professionals from across Europe and beyond.

Renowned for its strong practical focus and high-quality technical programme, the EWWM Conference brings together leading experts from across the wastewater sector to explore the latest advances in treatment processes, asset management, digital transformation, sustainability, and regulatory compliance.

Water as a waste is an outdated concept that fails to recognise its inherent resource value. Nutrients, energy, platform compounds, and water can all be recovered and reused; however, adoption of circular practices is often dependent on fiscal and legal incentives. At the same time, our catchments have become a convenient, low-cost disposal route for many emerging compounds.

The rollout of the Industrial Emissions Directive has the potential to shift this narrative. Larger wastewater treatment sites incorporating anaerobic digestion now face stringent Environmental Quality Standards for effluent discharge. This is expected to drive the adoption of quaternary treatment options, alongside a fundamental review of pollution sources, including trade effluents and third-party waste imports. Key questions remain: Is there an opportunity to treat at source, recover value, centralise treatment—and who will ultimately pay?

Treatment standards continue to tighten, with ultra-low total nitrogen and phosphorus limits now a reality. There is an urgent need to maximise, extend, and intensify the asset base to deliver resilient performance. While the aspiration of zero pollution dominates much of the AMP8 spend, achieving this goal will require a fundamental shift in how water is managed.

Nitrous oxide emissions continue to dominate greenhouse gas contributions. The need to mitigate and act now is clear, yet without strong business drivers questions remain over how progress will be made and when emissions impacts will be fully considered within design. Perhaps AI will help—but when, with what tools, and how?

Changing how we—and the public—think and perceive the industry may be the biggest challenge of all. With intense media scrutiny remaining ever present, it is clear that the entire supply chain must heighten its efforts to collaborate, innovate, and deliver real change.

As always, the 2026 EWWM Conference will focus firmly on practitioners’ experiences, providing a vital platform for the water community to share knowledge, drive improvement, strengthen collaboration, and accelerate progress.

2026 Themes

Abstracts are invited for both oral and poster presentations under the following themes:

Process emissions – case studies of successful mitigation strategies and the incorporation of low-emissions thinking in design principles
Zero pollution – managing and mitigating storm and rainfall events, including CSOs
Water re-use and water fit for purpose – generating resources from final effluent, water security and efficiency, and drought prevention
Achieving low total nitrogen and low total phosphorus consents – approaches and case studies
Micropollutants and emerging contaminants – source control, catchment management, and treatment, including Nature-Based Solutions
Maximising the potential and resilience of assets – getting more from what we have, intensifying processes, and extending the asset base
Operating for the future – Artificial Intelligence, Digital Twins, Connected Catchments, Biorefineries
Bigger picture thinking – strategic perspectives on the future of the industry