Plant Soil Environ., 2009, 55(10):429-435 | DOI: 10.17221/131/2009-PSE

Microbial pollution of water from agriculture

D. Baudišová
T.G. Masaryk Water Research Institute, Public Research Institution, Prague, Czech Republic

Microbial contamination of small streams in agricultural areas was monitored for two years. Microbiological indicators of faecal pollution (faecal coliforms, Escherichia coli and intestinal enterococci were detected by standard methods based on the cultivation of bacteria on selective media). The obtained results showed that running contamination of streams from agricultural areas was not extremely high, but it showed marked seasonal fluctuations (the average values and maximal values revealed great differences). Microbial contamination also increased several times in relation to high precipitation. The water quality in three (and/or four) localities exceeded the acceptable counts of faecal coliforms and enterococci given by the Czech legislation (40 CFU/ml for faecal coliforms and 20 CFU/ ml for enterococci). In agriculturally polluted streams, there were detected more enterococci than faecal coliforms, and also some less frequent species related to farm animals (Streptococcus equines and S. bovis) or plant rests (E. mundtii, E. gallinarum, E. casseliflavus) were present. E. faecalis and E. faecium strains (these are the most common species related to human faecal pollution) were less frequent there.

Keywords: Enterococcus; faecal coliforms; pollution source identification; antibiotic resistance; surface water quality

Published: October 31, 2009  Show citation

ACS AIP APA ASA Harvard Chicago IEEE ISO690 MLA NLM Turabian Vancouver
Baudišová D. Microbial pollution of water from agriculture. Plant Soil Environ.. 2009;55(10):429-435. doi: 10.17221/131/2009-PSE.
Share...
Download citation
  • BibTeX (.bib)
  • Bookends (.ris)
  • EasyBib (.ris)
  • EndNote (.enw)
  • EndNote 8 (.xml)
  • ISI WoS (.isi)
  • Medlars (.medlars)
  • Mendeley (.ris)
  • MODS (.xml)
  • Papers (.ris)
  • RefWorks (.txt)
  • RefManager (.ris)
  • RIS (.ris)
  • MS Word (.xml)
  • Zotero (.ris)
    • Open full article

    References

    1. Brion G.M., Lingireddy S. (1999): A neural network approach to identifying non-point sources of microbial contamination. Water Research, 33: 3099-3106. Go to original source...
    2. Buck O., Nyiogi D.K., Townsend C.R. (2004): Scaledependent of land use effects on water quality of streams in agricultural catchments. Environmental Pollution, 130: 287-299. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
    3. Choi S., Chu W., Brown J., Becker S.J., Harwood V.J., Jiang S.C. (2003): Application of enterococci antibiotic resistance patterns for contamination source identification at Huntington Beach, California. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 46: 748-755. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
    4. Chou C.C., Lin Y.C., Su J.J. (2004): Microbiological indicators for differentiation of human and pig-sourced fecal pollution. Journal of Environmental Science and Health, Part A: Toxic/Hazardous Substances and Environmental Engineering, 39: 1415-1421. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
    5. Edwards D.R., Coyne M.S., Vendrell P.F., Daniel T.C., Moore P.A. Jr., Murdoch J.F. (1997): Fecal coliform and Streptococcus concentrations in runoff from grazed pastures in northwest Arkansas. Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 33: 413-422. Go to original source...
    6. Holt J.G., Krieg N.R., Sneath P.H.A., Staley J.T., Williams S.T. (1994): Facultative Anaerobic Gram-negative Rods. Bergey's Manual of Determinative Bacteriology, 9 th ed., Baltimore.
    7. Kelsey R.H., Scott G.I., Porter D.E., Thompson B., Webster L. (2003): Using multiple antibiotic resistance and land use characteristics to determine sources of fecal coliform bacterial pollution. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 81: 337-348. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
    8. Lecianova L. (1987): Myxobacteria in Waters. Water Research Institute in State Agriculture Publisher. Prague, 1987. (In Czech)
    9. Tillet H.E., Sellwood J., Lightfoot N.F., Boyd P., Eaton S. (2001): Correlation between microbial parameters from water samples: expectations and reality. Water Science and Technology, 43: 19-22. Go to original source...
    10. Wiggins B.A., Andrews R.W., Conway R.A., Corr C.L., Dobratz E.J., Dougherty D.P. (1999): Use of antibiotic resistance analysis to identify nonpoint sources of fecal pollution. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 65: 3483-3486. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...
    11. Young K.D., Thackston E.L. (1999): Housing density and bacterial loading in urban streams. Journal of Environmental Engineering, 125: 1177-1180. Go to original source...

    This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY NC 4.0), which permits non-comercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.


    Return to the content