Comprehensive water testing analyses for improved water management: coliforms, coliphage and cholesterol

Abstract

The use of feacal coliforms as indicators is the traditional approach of testing water quality. Unfortunately, for a comprehensive water quality analysis, there is an increasing body of evidence that demonstrates coliforms as insufficient indicators for water quality assessment. Therefore, during the last two decades, alternative water testing approaches such as the use of coliphage as well as cholesterol detection have gained popularity. In the present study, we evaluated and compared the reliability of data from three different indicators that included coliforms (streptococcus), coliphage and cholesterol. Four sites were chosen for sample collection and these included one site from Haart river (HR1) and three sites from Barberspan (BP1, 2 and 3) in the North-West province of South Africa. Samples were collected during winter and summer seasons. Collected samples were subjected to different analyses for detection of coliphage, coliforms and cholesterol. Faecal indicator bacteria were detected at all sites and in some cases were relatively high (HR1: 287 cfu/100 mL faecal coliform and 228.6 cfu/100 mL faecal streptococci; BP1: 1,730 cfu/100 mL E. coli). The HR1 site consistently had the highest levels of bacterial faecal indicators of the four sampling sites. Most notably, faecal streptococci were detected in higher numbers than any other bacterial indicator. A significant finding was the general higher levels of faecal indicator markers at the BP3. Based on the outcome of this study, a combination of these indicators offers a comprehensive and promising approach for monitoring water quality.

Development of a bio‐inspired magnetic nanocomposite synthesized through semi‐covalent imprinting for electrochemical determination of cholesterol in water samples

“…In addition, as will be further demonstrated, the proposed method was applied in water samples practically undiluted, which denotes the absence of interference from water samples. One should note still that bearing in mind the previous studies carried out for the CHO determination in water samples and sediments as an indicator of fecal pollution using chromatographic techniques [7,8,[41][42][43], the detectability herein obtained is enough for this purpose.…”

“…Coprostanol has been used as a biomarker of pollution by domestic sewage as such hormone is produced in the digestive tracts of humans and higher vertebrates from the microbial reduction of cholesterol (CHO) [6]. Moreover, studies have reported that CHO, one of the major sterols in aquatic environments, has a high positive correlation with coprostanol and its higher concentration in water samples must likely be associated with domestic effluent inputs and, thus has also been considered a sterol biomarker for animal fecal pollution [7, 8].…”