Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Abstract
Although the transport of Escherichia coli ( E. coli ) strains in saturated columns of sediment
was studied many times, to our knowledge, there is no study reported in literature that
focuses on the transport of E. coli strains isolated after they have undergone transport in an
aquifer. In this study, we harvested 6 E. coli strains from springs in Kampala, the capital of
Uganda, and carried out laboratory column experiments with 1.5 m high quartz sand
columns. To characterize transport, we used the minimum sticking efficiency (
Α ). The
results indicated that mi Α for most of the strains was in a narrow range of minimum sticking
efficiencies in the order of 10 -5 to 10 -4 . Based on these results, we propose that for worse case
scenarios in predicting pathogen transport in aquifers, sticking efficiency values of 10 -4 to 10 -
5 should not be considered unrealistically low. Instead, we demonstrated that these values are
likely characteristic for most of the E. coli strains that would have undergone transport
through an aquifer.
min
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