As evidenced by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, pathogenic viruses represent a major global threat to human health and wellbeing. Over the last decade, Bangor research has developed a range of analytical tools, technologies and models for the effective surveillance of harmful viruses in the wider environment, leading to risk-based industry standards. Working in partnership with UK and devolved governments, our wastewater-based surveillance tools have been adopted, piloted and rolled out at the national scale: (a) for whole-community monitoring of COVID-19 incidence, (b) to provide an early warning system to protect critical national infrastructure from SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks, (c) as a decision support tool to show which city areas should be targeted for mass testing, and (d) to evaluate the success of COVID-19 mitigation measures.