The overarching aim of Testing the Waters 2015 is to bring together scientists and stakeholders from all involved disciplines to integrate results and contribute to the solution of a complex, societal problem (trans-disciplinarity). To date, no in-depth comparison of different data sources was possible due to a lack of i) overlap in space and time or ii) commonly agreed protocols. Therefore, submissions related to truly trans-disciplinary projects, integrating results from wastewater studies and other epidemiological data, are particularly encouraged for theme 1 on targeted monitoring. Furthermore, scientific advances in individual disciplines are pertinent to refine components of wastewater-based drug epidemiology (inter-disciplinarity). These are covered with theme 2 on methodological improvements (back-calculation) and theme 3 on analytical chemistry. Legal and ethical aspects are addressed in theme 4. Altogether, this will contribute to filling current gaps and providing guidance on future applications, also beyond illicit drugs (theme 5). For the benefit of community-wide health assessment, the main objective is to disseminate recent advances and discuss new approaches in wastewater-based drug epidemiology. This will lead to a targeted cross-sectoral evaluation of recent research activities in this field.

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