Wastewater-Based Surveillance of Microbial Pathogens in GCC Countries (2015–2025)

A scoping review and stakeholder survey analyzing 26 peer-reviewed studies on wastewater-based surveillance (WBS) in Gulf Cooperation Council countries from 2015 to 2025. The document, authored by Bushra Alghamdi and published on figshare in 2026, critically assesses the scope, methodology, and focus of WBS efforts in the region. It identifies antimicrobial resistance and SARS-CoV-2 as the main surveillance targets and discusses the underutilized potential of WBS for public health decision-making.

Use Cases

• Reviewing the state of wastewater-based surveillance research in GCC countries based on the 26 included studies.
• Identifying methodological gaps and standardization needs in regional WBS efforts based on the survey results.
• Analyzing the primary microbial targets (e.g., antimicrobial resistance, SARS-CoV 2) monitored in GCC wastewater.
• Informing future consortium-based surveillance system development based on the review's conclusions.

Strengths

• Covers a defined 10-year time range (2015–2025) for the GCC region.
• Systematically reviews 26 identified studies following PRISMA scoping review guidance.
• Includes perspectives from stakeholders involved in wastewater surveillance execution.
• Released under a permissive CC-BY-4.0 license for reuse.

Limitations

• The dataset is a 76.2 KB DOCX document, not a structured data table; analysis requires manual extraction.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The review notes an uneven distribution of studies across the six GCC countries and a lack of quantitative measurements in many.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Bushra Alghamdi.

Collection Method

Structured literature search (Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar) and stakeholder survey.

Time Range

2015–2025

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-22 05:47:53; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries