TY - JOUR
T1 - Enumerating microorganism surrogates for groundwater transport studies using solid-phase cytometry
AU - Stevenson, Margaret E.
AU - Blaschke, A. Paul
AU - Schauer, Sonja
AU - Zessner, Matthias
AU - Sommer, Regina
AU - Farnleitner, Andreas H.
AU - Kirschner, Alexander K.T.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments This paper was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) as part of the DK-Plus 1219-N22 (Vienna Doctoral Program on Water Resource Systems). Additional support came from the project Groundwater Resource Systems Vienna (GWRS-Vienna), funded by Vienna Waterworks as part of the “(New)Danube – Untere Lobau Network Project” (Gewässervernetzung (Neue) Donau – Untere Lobau (Nationalpark Donau-Auen)), the Government of Austria (Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment & Water Management), the Government of Vienna, and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (project LE 07-13). This study is a joint publication of the Interuniversity Cooperation Centre Water & Health (www.waterandhealth.at).
PY - 2014/2
Y1 - 2014/2
N2 - Investigations on the pollution of groundwater with pathogenic microorganisms, e.g. tracer studies for groundwater transport, are constrained by their potential health risk. Thus, microspheres are often used in groundwater transport studies as non-hazardous surrogates for pathogenic microorganisms. Even though pathogenic microorganisms occur at low concentrations in groundwater, current detection methods of microspheres (spectrofluorimetry, flow cytometry and epifluorescence microscopy) have rather high detection limits and are unable to detect rare events. Solid-phase cytometry (SPC) offers the unique capability of reliably quantifying extremely low concentrations of fluorescently labelled microorganisms or microspheres in natural waters, including groundwater. Until now, microspheres have been used in combination with SPC only for instrument calibration purposes and not for environmental applications. In this study, we explored the limits of the SPC methodology for its applicability to groundwater transport studies. The SPC approach proved to be a highly sensitive and reliable enumeration system for microorganism surrogates down to a minimum size of 0.5 μm, in up to 500 ml of groundwater, and 0.75 μm, in up to 1 ml of turbid surface water. Hence, SPC is proposed to be a useful method for enumerating microspheres for groundwater transport studies in the laboratory, as well as in the field when non-toxic, natural products are used.
AB - Investigations on the pollution of groundwater with pathogenic microorganisms, e.g. tracer studies for groundwater transport, are constrained by their potential health risk. Thus, microspheres are often used in groundwater transport studies as non-hazardous surrogates for pathogenic microorganisms. Even though pathogenic microorganisms occur at low concentrations in groundwater, current detection methods of microspheres (spectrofluorimetry, flow cytometry and epifluorescence microscopy) have rather high detection limits and are unable to detect rare events. Solid-phase cytometry (SPC) offers the unique capability of reliably quantifying extremely low concentrations of fluorescently labelled microorganisms or microspheres in natural waters, including groundwater. Until now, microspheres have been used in combination with SPC only for instrument calibration purposes and not for environmental applications. In this study, we explored the limits of the SPC methodology for its applicability to groundwater transport studies. The SPC approach proved to be a highly sensitive and reliable enumeration system for microorganism surrogates down to a minimum size of 0.5 μm, in up to 500 ml of groundwater, and 0.75 μm, in up to 1 ml of turbid surface water. Hence, SPC is proposed to be a useful method for enumerating microspheres for groundwater transport studies in the laboratory, as well as in the field when non-toxic, natural products are used.
KW - ChemScan™ RDI
KW - Drinking water resources
KW - Groundwater
KW - Microspheres
KW - Pathogen surrogates
KW - Solid-phase cytometry
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84891363644&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s11270-013-1827-3
DO - 10.1007/s11270-013-1827-3
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:84891363644
SN - 0049-6979
VL - 225
JO - Water, Air, and Soil Pollution
JF - Water, Air, and Soil Pollution
IS - 2
M1 - 1827
ER -