Opportunistic Pathogens in Drinking Water Distribution Systems-A Review.

In contrast to "frank" pathogens, like , , and , that always have a probability of disease, "opportunistic" pathogens are organisms that cause an infectious disease in a host with a weakened immune system and rarely in a healthy host. Historically, drinking water treatment has focused on control of frank pathogens, particularly those from human or animal sources (like , , or ), but in recent years outbreaks from drinking water have increasingly been due to opportunistic pathogens. Characteristics of opportunistic pathogens that make them problematic for water treatment include: (1) they are normally present in aquatic environments, (2) they grow in biofilms that protect the bacteria from disinfectants, and (3) under appropriate conditions in drinking water systems (e.

Operationalising water safety plans for Melbourne - a large city case study.

A wholesale/retail model delivers drinking water to over 5 million residents in metropolitan Melbourne (Australia). Water Safety Plans were implemented in 1999 ahead of being regulatory mandated in 2003. With over 20 years of WSP application, this collaborative paper by the wholesaler and retailer utilities presents practical examples of drinking water quality risk management in challenging operational environments, highlighting lessons learnt, improvements made and outcomes achieved.

What's the risk? Identifying potential human pathogens within grey-headed flying foxes faeces.

Pteropus poliocephalus (grey-headed flying foxes) are recognised vectors for a range of potentially fatal human pathogens. However, to date research has primarily focused on viral disease carriage, overlooking bacterial pathogens, which also represent a significant human disease risk. The current study applied 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing, community analysis and a multi-tiered database OTU picking approach to identify faecal-derived zoonotic bacteria within two colonies of P.

Evaluation of Techniques for Measuring Microbial Hazards in Bathing Waters: A Comparative Study.

Recreational water quality is commonly monitored by means of culture based faecal indicator organism (FIOs) assays. However, these methods are costly and time-consuming; a serious disadvantage when combined with issues such as non-specificity and user bias. New culture and molecular methods have been developed to counter these drawbacks.

Into the deep: Evaluation of SourceTracker for assessment of faecal contamination of coastal waters.

Faecal contamination of recreational waters is an increasing global health concern. Tracing the source of the contaminant is a vital step towards mitigation and disease prevention. Total 16S rRNA amplicon data for a specific environment (faeces, water, soil) and computational tools such as the Markov-Chain Monte Carlo based SourceTracker can be applied to microbial source tracking (MST) and attribution studies.

Restoration of stormwater retention capacity at the allotment-scale through a novel economic instrument.

Urbanisation results in changes to runoff behaviour which, if not addressed, inevitably degrade receiving waters. To date, most stormwater management has focussed on the streetscape and public open space. Given that much of the catchment imperviousness is located on private land, we developed and tested a novel economic instrument (a uniform price auction) for encouraging allotment-scale stormwater retention.