My two cents...
Viruses vary a lot with regards to their characteristics, which is why treatments/environmental conditions present such varied efficiencies/values for different viruses (i.e. different possible inactivation mechanisms). It is therefore a bit risky to use terms like "in general" when referring to viruses.
One must be prudent with regards to what is trying to be simulated when working with phages, as they are not an universal surrogate for viruses for the reasons explained above.
It could be therefore interesting to widen a literature search to include different viruses of interest (if you know what they are).

When I was working on an ultra-filtration membrane based drinking-water treatment system I can across some pretty interesting research showing that viruses are usually particle associated and could thus be filtered out to >99% by a membrane that strictly speaking had pores the viruses could fit through. A Google scholar search should probably give you some good scientific papers (I hope not behind a paywall, back then I was within a University network).

In general viruses are "dead" pieces of organic material with a high content of DNA or RNA, thus cold and moist conditions with as little UV radiation as possible result in the longest virus survival.

What one usually does it to test one's system with a high dosis of harmless "phages" (viruses that only attack bacteria) that can then be detected relatively easily via exposure to their host bacteria.

Dear SuSanA partners:

In BIS Chile we are in the last phase of product technological validation. In this phase, we selected a group of pathogens based in different criteria (disease prevalence in Chile, International and National sanitary regulations and parasite presence in faecal samples in the region). The most complicated for now are the viruses, we need to find a review or an article about the ideal environmental conditions for viruses survival, elimination and transmission. I read that they can even been transmitted through the air, so it's an important issue to consider if you are a UDDT developer. At least in Chile are the most common cause of diarrea in areas with poor sanitation. So please, share any article or review from a trustable source, we and our future users are gonna be really grateful.