Citation:

Stewart, J. R., A. B. Boehm, E. A. Dubinsky, T. Fong, K. D. Goodwin, J. F. Griffith, R. T. Noble, O. C. Shanks, K. Vijayavel, AND S. B. Weisberg. Recommendations following a multi-laboratory comparison of microbial source tracking methods. WATER RESEARCH. Elsevier Science Ltd, New York, NY, 47(18):6829-3838, (2013).

Impact/Purpose:

To inform the public on matters relating to methods to identify sources of fecal contamination in environmental waters.

Description:

Microbial source tracking (MST) methods are under development to provide resource managers with tools to identify sources of fecal contamination in water. Some of the most promising methods currently under development were recently evaluated in the Source Identification Protocol Project (SIPP), in which 27 laboratories compared methods for their ability to identify sources of fecal pollution from blinded water samples containing either one or two different fecal pollution sources. This paper details lessons learned from the SIPP study and makes recommendations for research necessary to further advance MST. Results from the SIPP study demonstrate that methods are available that can identify whether particular host sources, including humans, cows and gulls, have contributed to contamination in a body of water. Fecal source allocation to predict the percent contribution of contamination from various pollution sources proved to be more problematic. Although additional research is needed to field validate and determine the robustness of findings, it is clear that MST can be a useful tool for resource managers tasked with bringing water bodies into compliance with State standards. Furthermore, it is apparent that the field of MST will continue to evolve and improve. Technological advances including high throughput DNA sequence analysis and field deployable detection systems will likely improve our ability to identify and apportion source-associated microbes in water.

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