activity.” Finally, we need to understand that we are part of nature; our prosperity
depends on that of nature and the wise exploitation of the ecosystems services they
may offer. We have a duty to preserve and protect the integrity of the ecosystem
components and their overall biodiversity. Each generation should give the next
generation equal opportunity to lead a happy life and therefore leave them a healthy
planet.
Ethics in general has little influence as a formal decision support tool relative to
law and economics. This is because ethicists have no standard classification system;
the acceptability of an act depends on its effect; the basis of utilitarian ethics and
utilitarian interest may extend well beyond economic welfare. People may be willing
to give up on economic resources out of sympathy to avoid repugnant experiences in
accordance with the deontological stance, which advocate human obligation to
protect the land and ecosystems.
Considerations of consequences are almost inevitable; the decision to sacrifice the
soil for sewage sludge disposal must be based on the determination that consequences of disposing it in other ecosystems will be more severe or other alternative
solutions are totally depleted. Increasing stakeholder influence in the business point
of view of water and sludge management operators, farmers, loggers, and ranchers,
in general, tends to accentuate ecological health problems and to diminish ecological
issues. Scientists should participate in stakeholders-informed decision processes by
clearly presenting the results of their research and assessments. They must learn to
work with economists, lawyers, risk managers, and policy analysts independently of
human emotion.
8 Concluding Remarks and Future Recommendations
The WW irrigation or sludge application impact on soil microbial communities and
soil properties depends on the direct effects of the exogenous microbiota, WW
physicochemical characteristics, and biosolids pollutants contents. These factors
may be responsible for the elimination of indigenous soil microorganisms through
competition or parasitism, or through modification of the soil physicochemical
properties, inducing disturbances of the indigenous soil microbial and mesofauna
community. These impacts are rarely characterized if not characterized at all,
constituting profound gaps in our knowledge. One of the challenges for future
research programs is to understand if and how the two parameters will affect the
soil micro- and macrobiome, which represent the backbone of soil fertility and
productivity, but also the capacity of the exogenous WW organisms to survive in
the soil and constitute a health risk to livestock and humans.
Currently culture-independent methods have a big advantage over traditional
cultivation of microorganisms, resulting in an improved representative picture of a
community, including the “viable but non-cultivable” fraction. Multi-omics
approaches (e.g., metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and metaproteomics) combined to a myriad of molecular ecology techniques (e.g., isotope probing,
72
E. Ammar et al.
depends on that of nature and the wise exploitation of the ecosystems services they
may offer. We have a duty to preserve and protect the integrity of the ecosystem
components and their overall biodiversity. Each generation should give the next
generation equal opportunity to lead a happy life and therefore leave them a healthy
planet.
Ethics in general has little influence as a formal decision support tool relative to
law and economics. This is because ethicists have no standard classification system;
the acceptability of an act depends on its effect; the basis of utilitarian ethics and
utilitarian interest may extend well beyond economic welfare. People may be willing
to give up on economic resources out of sympathy to avoid repugnant experiences in
accordance with the deontological stance, which advocate human obligation to
protect the land and ecosystems.
Considerations of consequences are almost inevitable; the decision to sacrifice the
soil for sewage sludge disposal must be based on the determination that consequences of disposing it in other ecosystems will be more severe or other alternative
solutions are totally depleted. Increasing stakeholder influence in the business point
of view of water and sludge management operators, farmers, loggers, and ranchers,
in general, tends to accentuate ecological health problems and to diminish ecological
issues. Scientists should participate in stakeholders-informed decision processes by
clearly presenting the results of their research and assessments. They must learn to
work with economists, lawyers, risk managers, and policy analysts independently of
human emotion.
8 Concluding Remarks and Future Recommendations
The WW irrigation or sludge application impact on soil microbial communities and
soil properties depends on the direct effects of the exogenous microbiota, WW
physicochemical characteristics, and biosolids pollutants contents. These factors
may be responsible for the elimination of indigenous soil microorganisms through
competition or parasitism, or through modification of the soil physicochemical
properties, inducing disturbances of the indigenous soil microbial and mesofauna
community. These impacts are rarely characterized if not characterized at all,
constituting profound gaps in our knowledge. One of the challenges for future
research programs is to understand if and how the two parameters will affect the
soil micro- and macrobiome, which represent the backbone of soil fertility and
productivity, but also the capacity of the exogenous WW organisms to survive in
the soil and constitute a health risk to livestock and humans.
Currently culture-independent methods have a big advantage over traditional
cultivation of microorganisms, resulting in an improved representative picture of a
community, including the “viable but non-cultivable” fraction. Multi-omics
approaches (e.g., metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and metaproteomics) combined to a myriad of molecular ecology techniques (e.g., isotope probing,
72
E. Ammar et al.