Publications by authors named "Chad Loewenstine"
Article Synopsis
- Recent studies indicate that pathogen counts in drinking and source waters follow a discrete Weibull or discrete growth distribution, which are highly skewed, complicating long-term mean estimations.
- Analyzing data revealed that longer data records are necessary for accurately assessing microbial counts, with 500-1,000 samples recommended for reliable results, while 50-100 samples can provide a rough estimate.
- The research suggests implementing a tiered management strategy for water quality monitoring, including rapid response plans for unusual indicators.
Living microbes are discrete, not homogeneously distributed in environmental media, and the form of the distribution of their counts in drinking water has not been well established. However, this count may "scale" or range over orders of magnitude over time, in which case data representing the tail of the distribution, and governing the mean, would be represented only in impractically long data records. In the absence of such data, knowledge of the general form of the full distribution could be used to estimate the true mean accounting for low-probability, high-consequence count events and provide a basis for a general environmental dose-response function.
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