Combining physicochemical properties and microbiome data to evaluate the water quality of South African drinking water production plants.

ABSTRACT: Anthropogenic activities in catchments used for drinking water production largely contaminates source waters, and this may impact the quality of the final drinking water product. These contaminants may also affect taxonomic and functional profiles of the bacterial communities in the drinking water. Here, we report an integrated insight into the microbiome and water quality of four water treatment plants (NWC, NWE, WCA and NWG) that supply portable water to communities in South Africa. A new scoring system based on combined significant changes of physicochemical parameters and microbial abundance from raw to treated water was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment plants at water purification. Physicochemical parameters which include total soluble solids, turbidity, pH, nitrite

SUBMITTER: Maguvu TE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7425920 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature