Towards the selection of the best discriminating parameters of microbial water quality: A case study of a urban recreational water resource involving a dam-rivers complex in Córdoba, Argentina

J.V. PAVAN, AND ; G.MASACHESSI,; C.A. MATEOS,; P.A. BARRIL, ; L.C.MARTÍNEZ, ; M.O.GIORDANO,; L.J.FERREYRA,; M.B ISA, ; A.WELTER, ; M. MARTINEZ WASSAF, ; RE VE; S.V. NATES

Microbes in the spotlight: recent progress in the understanding of beneficial and harmful microorganisms"

Brown Walker Press

Lugar: Boca Raton; Año: 2016; p. 140 - 144

Data from a year-long monitoring campaign of a dam complex, located in the province of Córdoba, Argentina were analyzed to characterize the best bacterial and viral groups that can reflect the microbiological water quality. The approach has been to monitor fecal coliforms, E. coli and enterococci together with the virus genome detection for rotavirus group A, astrovirus, norovirus, JC polyomavirus and picobirnavirus and infectious human enterovirus. Our results support that the presence of viral genomes as well as an infectious virus in areas where fecal contamination was not demonstrated by bacterial indicators suggests prolonged virus persistence in aquatic environments and emphasizes the enteric virus groups as the most reliable for microbiological water quality assessing. The combined detection of infectious human enterovirus and the genome of picobirnavirus could be promising indicators of microbiological contamination derived from human and animal feces in the surface water. In addition, they could give information about the presence of the main viruses responsible for human acute gastroenteritis.