Impact of Treated Sewage Effluent on the Microbiology of a Small Brook Using Flow Cytometry as a Diagnostic Tool.

Flow cytometry was applied to assess the microbiological impact of treated sewage effluent discharge into a small brook carrying surface runoff water. Increases in dissolved organic carbon and soluble reactive phosphorous were accompanied by increases in counts of intact bacteria by up to eightfold. Effluent ingress furthermore resulted in a pronounced shift of bacterial clusters.