COVID-19 and water resources nexus: Potential routes for virus spread and management using artificial intelligence techniques

The new Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has cast a shadow over the entire world and affected the universe in all economic, environmental, industrial, and agricultural aspects. Accordingly, the study of the potential routes of virus spreading is crucial to limit the infection. This chapter presents a comprehensive survey of most past and current studies that dealt with the causes of the spread of the new COVID-19, mostly surface water and groundwater. The threat is commonly associated with the direct use of contaminated surface or groundwater by sewage sources arose mainly from the mixing of clean water with sewage through several pathways. The second wave of COVID-19 is currently invading the world, especially with the emerging new virus strains that invaded Britain in December 2020, having double the infectivity of the COVID-19 of the first wave. Accordingly, a water management system is required to monitor the increased transmission rate by developing biosensors and IoT to detect and estimate the SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater and drinking water. Besides, the integration of IoT and artificial intelligence (AI) methodologies could examine how effectively the AI could monitor the outbreaks to help decision-makers curb the infection. This work will also shed light on increasing public awareness of the virus’s risk spread through distinct contaminated surface and groundwater paths, especially when consumed directly without disinfection procedures. Additionally, a case study in the East Nile Delta is discussed to show how the contamination of surface water represents a potential route for virus transmission through the direct use of contaminated groundwater, where a potential wastewater flow paths were recorded from a heavily polluted drain to the nearby wells. We recommend a future work plan for continuous monitoring of the surface water, groundwater, and wastewater, to detect the presence or absence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.