ICRA hosted the doctoral thesis defense of Angela Isabel Pedregal Montes, entitled Disinfection by-products in a changing climate: Predictive tools for anticipatory source water management, supervised by Maria José Farré Olalla and Eleanor Jennings.

The thesis investigates how climate change and human activities affect the quality of surface waters and the formation of disinfection by-products (DBPs), compounds that are generated during drinking water treatment processes. Through experimental studies in Sweden and modelling tools applied to the Ter River basin, the research identifies the factors influencing the occurrence of the main precursors of these compounds and explores new strategies to reduce their associated risks.

The results highlight the need to move towards a more anticipatory approach to drinking water management, based on the integration of environmental data, forecasting systems, and decision-support tools. This approach can help water utilities better protect water quality in a context of global change and increasing environmental uncertainty.

The thesis defense can be watched on the ICRA YouTube channel.