Lechevallier, P., Villez, K., Felsheim, C., & Rieckermann, J. (2024). Towards non-contact pollution monitoring in sewers with hyperspectral imaging. Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology, 10, 1160-1170. https://doi.org/10.1039/D3EW00541K
We conducted a proof-of-concept experiment to study the use of hyperspectral imaging for wastewater monitoring. This paper laid the methodological foundations for my subsequent work and describes a simple workflow to convert hyperspectral images into representative reflectance spectra.
Lechevallier, P. (2025). Doctoral Thesis: Non-contact monitoring of urban wastewater pollution with diffuse reflectance spectrophotometry. ETH Zürich, Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-c-000784863
My thesis focuses on the use of diffuse reflectance spectrophotometry to remotely monitor wastewater contaminants. It contains a general introduction, four research chapters, and a broad discussion. Each chapter can be read as a standalone document. The introduction provides a broad overview leading to ten research questions that I address across the research chapters. The first three research chapters are peer-reviewed scientific papers, while the final chapter is published exclusively in my thesis. In the discussion, I revisit the ten initial research questions and answer them in light of the results obtained during my research.
Lechevallier, P., Gruber, G., Bareš, V., Neuenhofer, N., Waldner, L., Mahajan, A., Mutzner, L., & Rieckermann, J. (2025). Dataset on wastewater quality monitoring with adsorption and reflectance spectrometry in the UV-vis range. Nature Scientific Data, 12, 1296. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-05459-x
In this paper, we present an extensive dataset collected during a 25-week wastewater monitoring campaign. State-of-the-art and innovative sensors were used for online quality monitoring, and laboratory samples were analyzed for conventional and organic chemicals.
Lechevallier, P., Zhu, W., Shi, L., McCarthy, D., & Rieckermann, J. (2025) Non-contact hyperspectral monitoring of urban wastewater quality: Optimization of model calibration and performance. Journal of Environmental Management, Volume 394,127217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2025.127217
This paper presents an in-depth evaluation of hyperspectral imaging applied to urban wastewater monitoring. We collected data from five diverse wastewater treatment plants and conducted a pilot-scale test of hyperspectral monitoring. We obtained excellent results for turbidity monitoring and promising results for ammonium and dissolved organic carbon concentrations.
van der Werf, J. A., Pons, V., Smyth, K., Shi, B., Lechevallier, P., Abdalla, E. M. H., Andrusenko, E., Broekhuizen, I., Cavadini, G. B., Cortés Moreno, A. F., Cristiano, E., D’Ambrosio, R., Droste, A. M., Evangelisti, M., Fernandes, G., Garzón, A., Girot, E., Guericke, L., Liao, W., … Yerima, H. Z. (2025). Flooded with potential: Urban drainage science as seen by early-career researchers. Water Science and Technology, 91(7), 861–875. https://doi.org/10.2166/wst.2025.045
I co-led a collaborative project with four colleagues and dozens of early-career researchers to define the future of urban drainage. This work lead to a conference paper summarizing our collective vision and the field’s primary challenges.