A visible-light-driven Ni-doped BiVO4 photocatalyst was synthesized using a microwave hydrothermal method. The nominal Ni doping amount of 1 wt% provided excellent photoactivity for a variety of water pollutants, such as ibuprofen (pharmaceutical), Escherichia coli (bacteria), and green tides (phytoplankton). Each Ni-doped BiVO4 sample exhibits better performance than pure BiVO4. The degradation of ibuprofen reaches 80% within 90 min, the deactivation of Escherichia coli reaches around 92% within 5 h, and the inactivation of green tide (Chlamydomonas pulsatilla) reaches 70% upon 60 min of the visible light irradiation. The first principle calculation and thermodynamic modeling revealed that Ni doping in the vanadium site gives the most stable configuration of the synthesized samples with the formation of an in-gap energy state and oxygen vacancies. The in-gap energy state and the oxygen vacancies serve as an electron-trapping center that decreases the migration time of the photogenerated carrier and increases the separation efficiency of electron-hole pairs, which are responsible for the observed efficient photo catalytic, anti-bacterial and anti-algal activity of the samples. These properties thus suggest potential applications of Ni-doped BiVO4 as a multifunctional material in the field of wastewater treatment. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.