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P R E F A C E

Environmental i ssues have become more and more cr i t ical aspects for sustainabi l i ty of theearth on whic h we l ive. Glob al wa rm ing issue is at tracting at tention for global sustainabil ity,but water envi ronmental issues are a lso very cr it ical ones and more urgent . Mo re than onebi l l ion of people do not have good access to safe dr inking water , and numerou s people sufferf rom poor quali ty of water . Avai lab i l i ty of water wi th enough quant i ty and good qual i ty i sindispensable condi t ion for hum an set tlement .

There i s long h is tory of engineer ing for improving water qual i ty , namely water andwastew ater t reatment . There ex is t microbio logical , physical and chemical processes .Among them microbio logical process i s one of the most reasonable processes that employsand enhances the funct ion of bacter ia in natural envi ronment .

However , operat ion of b io logical t reatment process has long been very empir ical. Designand operation of process are based on the past exper iences . Such exper ience-basedtechnology has been sat i sfactory as long as convent ional po l lu tan t removal i s a imed at .Howe ver , removal o f wider var ie t ies of po l lu tan t wi th h igh ef f ic iency and wi th low energy orresource consum pt ion is now aday s requi red . W e need to explore in to detail s of microbialcomm uni t ies to sati sfy such requi rements . Empir ical way of design and operat ion should berev iew ed and improved under the l igh t o f advanced know ledge on complex m icroo rgan isms .

Tradi tional micro bio logy uses the approac h of pure cu l ture s tudy . On the o ther hand,microorganisms work as consor t ium in microbio logical communi ty in the actual wastewatert reatment . There ex is ts great gap between pure cu l ture approach and the actual process .Isolat ion and cult ivation are basic tools in the pure culture study. Ho wev er, such me thodsare very d i ff icu lt and not a lways relevant in the wastew ater treatment. A typical example i sphosphorus removing organism s of whic h pure cu l ture is hard ly obtained . The secondproblem is that the s imple summat ion of funct ion of each group of the i so latedmicroorga nisms does not necessar i ly show the funct ion of bacteria l com mu ni ty in t reatmentprocess.The appropr iate approach in wastewater t reatment i s to examine the complex microbialcom mun i ty as it i s. How ever , such research of ten becom es very empir ical and microbialcom mu ni ty i s t reated as an unkno wn b lack box. W e have not had sati sfactory tool to openand e lucidate this box.

The rap id progress of the molecular b io logical techniques for analyzing microorganismshas been changing and enhancing our unders tanding of the com plex microbial communi t ies .This technological progress provides us new possib i l i ty of d isclosing th is b lack box. Ourexplo ring jou rne y is sti l l at ini t ial stage, but ma ny ne w findings are expected in the nea rfuture.

The o ther impor tan t aspect of microbio logy in water and wastewater t reatment i s thecontro l of heal th-related microorg anisms. W ater-borne d iseases are com mo n problem indevelo ping countries, and also cri t ical issue in deve loped countries. The outbreak of newtype of in fectious organisms suc h as Cryptospordium s ince la te 80 ' s has chal lenged ou r v iewsuch that wate r-borne disease is the past issue in the developed countries. M olec ularb io logical methods have enabled the detect ion and ident i f ication of trace am ount o f in fect iousmicroorganisms. Discussion in molecular level and that f rom the v iewpoin t of r i sk

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ma nage me nt is be ing required to protec t our heal th .Under these background the U nivers i ty of Tokyo s tarted in 19 96 "Center of Excel lence(CO E)" projec t of Minis t ry of Educat ion, Cul ture and Sports , Japan. The projec t i s nam edas "Es tabl ishme nt and Evaluat ion of Advan ced Water Treatm ent Technology Sys tems UsingFunct ions of Complex Microbial Com mu nity ." This projec t i s be ing conducted a tDepartment of Urban Engineering and other departments or research ins t i tu tes in theUnivers i ty of Tokyo. This COE projec t is a iming a t c ross ing the br idge between sc ience ofmicrobio logy and prac t ica l water and w as tewater trea tment .This book is based on one of the per iodica l sym posia he ld under th is projec t on M arch 6 - 8 ,2000.On behalf of the edi tors and as the former COE projec t leader , I wish tha t th is book wouldcontr ibute to the progress o f water and was tewater t rea tment both from sc ient if ic and prac t ica laspects.

T o m o n o r i M a t s u oProfessor, Toyo UniversityProfessor Em eri tus , The U nivers i ty of Toky o