The coming year marks the 80th anniversary of WEF’s peer-reviewed publication, Water Environment Research® (WER). Looking back over those 80 years, we find that while many of the central tenets of water management - and in particular, wastewater management - have remained intact, the scope of the industry is evolving at a rapid pace. There is a microbial world whose composition is coming into focus; there are industrial compounds whose effects are still being revealed; there is a complex water environment which is changing at a remarkable pace in response to human activities and a shifting climate.  These are the sorts of issues that expand boundaries in water research; they can also cause exceptional stresses to the water and wastewater operations and infrastructure. The most important factor to thriving in such a volatile situation is communication, and it is with this premise in mind that WEF is expanding its commitment to peer-reviewed literature by publishing Water Practice™.

Each year, WEF sponsors many specialty conferences in addition to WEFTEC®.  These conferences cover areas such as biosolids management, utility management, disinfection, collection systems, water reuse, and nutrients management.  WEFTEC itself typically covers a wide range of topics related to all of the above, and with international dimensions. Each year, hundreds of research and practice-oriented papers are presented at these events. Yet, access to the cumulative knowledge presented at these conferences has been limited to the attendees of these conferences and those who might indirectly acquire these proceedings.  The tragic reality is that all of this knowledge is practically lost a short time after the conclusion of a conference. The principal thrust of this new journal is to capture as much of this new knowledge as possible and as practicable through a quality control process driven by peer review and make this knowledge available to the entire environmental community.

We hope that a product will emerge that combines the best environmental engineering and science practice from both the academic and practice-oriented professional communities. Cooperation between these groups will be essential to the development of new policies and the implementation of new technologies. While academics have always been comfortable with the notion of publication, a principal role of this new journal is to ensure that engineers, managers and operators also have a voice in the literature. In this capacity, Water Practice should be seen as an incentive for professionals to formalize and share their work with the whole community. Professionals who are unable to attend these influential symposia will still be able to follow developments in the water industry from around the world.

Academics will also be able to follow the progress “on the ground,” a point not to be overlooked. The implementation of an approach developed in the lab is just as important as the original development. Moreover, feedback from operational studies can be useful in refocusing and refining future academic pursuits. By providing the practitioner a greater voice, both groups will have an easier time responding to one another. However, developing a venue for the practitioner is not to preclude practitioners and academics from publishing alongside one another; both will find themselves at home in this new journal.

In keeping with the flexibility required for this venture, Water Practice will be publishing online only, a format that could hardly have been envisioned those many decades ago. Of course, the objective to publishing remains the same as when WER was introduced: the function of any journal is to document and record the field that it takes as its subject. Consequently, a journal is only as successful as the community who produces and reviews the work. Despite changing demographics, ongoing input from the water community suggests that there is a clear desire to help promote this project. It is a fortunate time to work in the water industry and there is much to be done. We introduce Water Practice as one instrument to facilitate the larger goal of progress in water science and expect it to serve as a durable, effectual addition to the water environment community.

Mohamed F. Dahab, President
Water Environment Federation