Importance of Reversible Attachment in Predicting E. Coli Transport in Saturated Aquifers From Column Experiments.

ABSTRACT: Drinking water wells indiscriminatingly placed adjacent to fecal contaminated surface water represents a significant but difficult to quantify health risk. Here we seek to understand mechanisms that limit the contamination extent by scaling up bacterial transport results from the laboratory to the field in a well constrained setting. Three pulses of E. coli originating during the early monsoon from a freshly excavated pond receiving latrine effluent in Bangladesh were monitored in 6 wells and modeled with a two-dimensional (2-D) flow and transport model conditioned with measured hydraulic heads. The modeling was performed assuming three different modes of interaction of E. coli with aquifer sands: 1) irreversible attachment only (best-fit k_i=7.6 day^-1);

SUBMITTER: Knappett PS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4014781 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature