First dimension.

Wastewater surveillance (WWS) has a long history in infectious disease management, from the detection of Salmonella Paratyphi B in sewers by Moore in 1948, to its role in global poliovirus eradication and more recently the deployment of WWS to track SARS-CoV-2. Whilst current interest has focused on pathogen sequencing to monitor outbreaks, WWS encompasses a much broader molecular landscape that includes a wide array of chemical compounds, proteins and DNA from human, animal, plant and microbial organisms. This diversity creates novel opportunities for public health applications, environmental monitoring, biodiversity studies, forensic science and even commercial innovation. The communities from which wastewater is sourced should be the primary beneficiaries of surveillance efforts, but WWS also requires robust governance mechanisms and ethical oversight to prevent harm to communities, ensure equitable practices, fulfil legal obligations and ensure appropriate use of potentially sensitive or commercially valuable findings. End-users of WWS resources must navigate these complexities to ensure ethical and legal compliance and responsible use of WWS samples and data. To assist with this process, we developed the WWS Ethics Adviser, an online interactive tool designed to alert users to context-specific ethical, legal, and governance considerations in WWS activities. The app aims to synthesise the principles of guidelines, treaties and other complex frameworks and resources into concise and actionable information for end users. The content is created within a two-dimensional matrix that categorises molecular entities and their origin against corresponding ethical, legal and governance elements. The tool offers tailored advice for WWS practitioners, oversight committees and responsible parties, in order to support equitable, ethical and legal WWS practices across diverse settings and use cases, and can be found at: https://wastewater-surveillance-ethics.streamlit.app/.

废水监测（Wastewater Surveillance, WWS）在传染病管理领域拥有悠久历史，从1948年Moore在下水道中检出副伤寒沙门氏菌B型（Salmonella Paratyphi B），到其在全球脊髓灰质炎根除工作中发挥的作用，乃至近期部署WWS追踪严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）。尽管当前学界的关注焦点多集中于利用病原体测序监测疫情暴发，但WWS涵盖的分子研究范畴远为广泛，涵盖了源自人类、动物、植物及微生物的各类化学物质、蛋白质与脱氧核糖核酸（DNA）。这种多样性为公共卫生应用、环境监测、生物多样性研究、法医学乃至商业创新带来了全新机遇。污水来源地的社区应成为监测工作的核心受益方，但WWS同样需要健全的治理机制与伦理审查，以避免对社区造成损害、确保实践公平合规、履行法律义务，并保障对潜在敏感或具有商业价值的研究结果进行合理使用。WWS资源的终端使用者需厘清这些复杂问题，以确保符合伦理与法律规范，并负责任地使用WWS样本与数据。为协助完成这一流程，我们开发了WWS伦理顾问（WWS Ethics Adviser），一款在线交互式工具，旨在提醒用户关注WWS活动中与具体场景相关的伦理、法律及治理考量事项。该应用旨在将各类指南、条约及其他复杂框架与资源中的原则提炼为简洁易用、可落地的信息，提供给终端使用者。其内容依托二维矩阵构建，将分子实体及其来源与对应的伦理、法律及治理要素进行分类匹配。本工具可为WWS从业者、审查委员会及责任方提供定制化建议，助力在各类场景与应用场景中实现公平、合乎伦理且合规的WWS实践，工具访问地址为：https://wastewater-surveillance-ethics.streamlit.app/