Fecal contamination and water quality

Fecal contamination of water sources introduces bacterial, viral, and protozoan pathogens that cause millions of illnesses annually, making the detection and tracking of that contamination a central problem in environmental science. Researchers study how pathogens move through soils, sediments, and surface waters—drawing on colloid filtration theory to understand attachment and transport—and use indicator organisms like *E. coli* and enterococci as practical proxies for broader fecal pollution when direct pathogen detection is too costly or slow. Microbial source tracking methods have advanced the field by distinguishing human from animal waste inputs, which matters enormously for assigning regulatory responsibility and designing interventions. Open questions remain around how extreme precipitation events mobilize pathogens at landscape scales, and whether current indicator standards reliably predict risk from viruses and antibiotic-resistant organisms that behave differently from the bacteria they are meant to represent.

Works

36,726

Total citations

310,798

Keywords

Waterborne DiseasePathogen TransportFecal ContaminationMicrobial Source TrackingColloid Filtration TheoryBacterial Pathogens