Investigating Microbial Abundance and Composition in Drinking Water Distribution via Analysis of Biofilm Communities Colonizing the WaterWiSe Sensors.

MASAAKI KITAJIMA; CRUZ, MERCEDES CECILIA; KALAIVANI MANI; WILLIAMS, ROHAN; WUERTZ, STEFAN; WHITTLE ANDREW

Workshop; Annual Workshop Center for Environmental Sensing and Modeling, Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology; 2015

ACEPTADO PARA POSTER. ADJUNTO POSTER (CONFIDENTIAL). ABSTRACT:Drinking water pipes are an essential urban infrastructure that must be adequately managed in order toprovide safe and high-quality drinking water to consumers. Biofilms occur universally on submergedsurfaces in drinking water supply systems, including water distribution pipes (Figure 1), which causes manyproblems in drinking water (e.g., residual disinfectant decay, proliferation of microbes, nitrification, andmicrobiologically influenced corrosion). Monitoring of biofilm development in drinking water pipes isessential to develop strategies for management of these problems; however, collecting biofilm samplesfrom real drinking water pipes is a substantial challenge due to limited access to the pipes during regularoperations. One of the possible approaches to tackle this challenge (i.e., studying biofilms in situ) iscollecting samples from a device inserted into the pipe. Based on this background, we carried out a pilot study toanalyze biofilm communities colonizing in-pipe sensors of the WaterWiSe (Water Wireless Sentinel) system, whichcomprises wireless sensor nodes measuring hydraulics and basic physicochemical water quality parameters.Specifically, in this pilot study we investigated microbial abundance and composition in biofilms and bulk waterusing advanced molecular technologies, namely, droplet digital polymerase chain reaction (ddPCR) and Illuminanext-generation sequencing.