Adriaan Mels appointed as Chair at Environmental Technology

“Worldwide, almost half of all wastewater still ends up untreated in surface water,” says Mels. “That has enormous effects on the quality of both surface and groundwater.” Untreated wastewater, for example, damages coral reefs and pollutes drinking water supplies. This causes health problems and environmental damage, especially in countries in the Global South. “The investments required for new sewerage and water treatment facilities are enormous. Many countries simply lack the financial means to build them, which results in insufficient access to clean drinking water,” Mels explains. In the coming years, he hopes to contribute to solutions by developing affordable and accessible water treatment technologies.

Circular urban resilience

According to Mels, there is also room for improvement in Europe and other high-income regions. European legislation, such as the Water Framework Directive, imposes increasingly strict requirements on the quality of discharged wastewater. For example, the presence of nitrogen and micro-pollutants must be significantly reduced. “Within Environmental Technology, we are therefore further developing the current purification technology to meet these requirements,” says Mels.

In addition to water purification and water availability, Mels focuses on raw materials. These too are becoming scarcer as the population grows. “If we truly want to achieve long-term sustainability, we must work in a circular way,” explains the chairholder. He aims to keep finite raw materials such as phosphate within closed-loop systems as much as possible. “In our research, we trace the flows of materials and investigate how we can recover and reuse them,” says Mels. “This helps reduce the ecological footprint of cities.”

Valuable collaborations

To strengthen circular urban resilience in the areas of water, raw materials and energy, the chair group collaborates with the water sector and other stakeholders such as the municipality of Amsterdam. Mels plans to expand these collaborations with the contacts he has built up during his career. According to the chairholder, the connection with the water sector is particularly valuable. "The water sector sees first-hand where the knowledge gaps lie in practical application, and can therefore formulate relevant research questions. If those questions are scientifically sound, it is our task to address them.” Moreover, close collaboration with the water sector accelerates the implementation of innovations.

About Adriaan Mels

Mels obtained his PhD at Wageningen University & Research in 2001, on energy-efficient wastewater treatment technologies for urban settings. He then worked as theme leader at the Lettinga Associates Foundation (LeAF) and as team leader of the Urban Environment Group. Under his leadership, this group was integrated into the Environmental Technology chair group in 2010 and renamed Urban Systems Engineering. He also played a key role in renewing the MSc programme in Urban Environmental Management.

In 2010, Mels joined VEI, a partnership between Dutch drinking water companies focused on international collaborations. He led programmes in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Myanmar, and Suriname. In 2016, he co-founded the long-running WaterWorX programme, which aims to improve water and wastewater services for 10 million people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Since 2022, Mels has been working part time at Environmental Technology in cooperation with VEI. In April this year, he was appointed professor, succeeding Prof. Dr Huub Rijnaarts, who retired in May 2024. In his new role, Mels will collaborate closely with Prof. Annemiek ter Heijne, who also holds a chair within the Environmental Technology group.