Sourcing fecal pollution from onsite wastewater treatment systems in surface waters using antibiotic resistance analysis
Carroll, Steven P., Hargreaves, Megan, & Goonetilleke, Ashantha (2005) Sourcing fecal pollution from onsite wastewater treatment systems in surface waters using antibiotic resistance analysis. Journal of Applied Microbiology, 99(3), pp. 471-482.
![[img]](http://eprints.qut.edu.au/style/images/fileicons/application_pdf.png)
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2672.2005.02644.x
Abstract
Aims: To identify the sources of fecal contamination in investigated surface waters and determine the significance of onsite wastewater treatment systems (OWTS) as a major contributor to fecal contamination.
Methods and Results: Antibiotic Resistance Patterns (ARP) were established for a library of 717 known E. coli source isolates obtained from human, domesticated animals, livestock and wild sources. Eight commonly used antibiotics, including Amoxicillin, Cephalothin, Erythromycin, Gentamicin, Ofloxacin, Chlortetracycline, Tetracycline and Moxalactam, at four different concentrations were used to obtain ARP’s for E. coli isolates. Discriminant Analysis (DA) was used to differentiate between the ARP of sources isolates. The developed ARP library was found to be adequate for discriminating human from non-human isolates, and was used to classify 256 enumerated E. coli isolates collected from monitored surface water locations.
Conclusions: The resulting ARP DA indicated that a majority of the fecal contamination in more rural areas was non-human, however the percentage of human isolates increased significantly in urbanised areas using OWTS for wastewater treatment.
Significance of Results: This study signifies the feasibility of using antibiotic resistance patterns for source tracking fecal contamination in surface waters, and linking fecal contamination to OWTS. The information will enable regulatory authorities to implement appropriate management practices to reduce the contamination of water resources caused by high densities and failing OWTS.
Citations:
Citation counts are sourced monthly from Scopus and Web of Science citation databases.
These databases contain citations from different subsets of available publications and different time periods and thus the citation count from each is usually different. Some works are not in either database and no count is displayed. Scopus includes citations from articles published in 1996 onwards, and Web of Science generally from 1980 onwards.
Citations counts from the Google Scholar™ indexing service can be viewed at the linked Google Scholar™ search.
Full-text downloads:
Full-text downloads displays the total number of times this work’s files (e.g., a PDF) have been downloaded from QUT ePrints as well as the number of downloads in the previous 365 days. The count includes downloads for all files if a work has more than one.
Export: EndNote | Dublin Core | BibTeX
Staff only: HERDC collection form
Repository Staff Only: item control page