Abstract
Escherichia coli or E. coli bacteria is related with the coliform group and is a more accurate fecal contamination indicator than other coliform bacteria; its existence indicates the potential presence of harmful bacteria causing diseases, and also indicates the extent and nature of the pollutants. E. coli bacteria can live in water for 4–12 weeks and currently serve as an indicator bacteria of fecal contamination in drinking water, due to the accessibility of simple, inexpensive, fast, sensitive, and precise detection techniques. According to the laboratory experiment based techniques, 24–48 hours are required for the bacterial concentration to be reported. Continuous monitoring of water quality is required. Techniques are not yet available to classify many pathogenic bacterial strains, and it sometimes takes days to weeks to achieve the results. To overcome these challenges, cost-effective and time-consuming techniques are needed to detect, count, and identify specific bacterial strains. Public health depends on online water quality monitoring, which is dependent mainly on analyzing fecal indicator bacteria, and health safety requires an indicator of fecal contamination so that it is not necessary to examine drinking water to overcome waterborne disease-related problems. This paper will brief the classification, sources, survival of E. coli bacteria, and their correlation with groundwater water quality parameters.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Anastasi EM, Matthews B, Stratton HM, Katouli M (2012) Pathogenic Escherichia coli found in sewage treatment plants and environmental waters. Appl Environ Microbiol 78:5536–5541
Baudišová D (1997) Evaluation of escherichia coli as the main indicator of faecal pollution. Water Sci Technol 35:333–336
Bergey DH, Deehan SJ (1908) The colon-aerogenes group of bacteria. J Med Res 19:175–200
Boehm A, Sassoubre LM (2014) Enterococci as indicators of environmental contamination. In: Gilmore MS, Clewell DB, Ike Y, Shankar N (eds) Commensals to leading to causes of drug resistant infections. Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Boston, p 101
Boualam M, Mathieu L, Fass S, Cavard J, Gatel D (2002) Relationship between coliform culturability and organic matter in low nutritive waters. Water Resour 36:2618–2626
Boualam M, Fass S, Saby S, Lahoussine V, Cavard J, Gatel D, Mathieu L (2003) Organic matter quality and survival of coliforms in low-nutrient waters. J Am Water Works Assoc 95:119–126
Burton GA, Gunnison D, Lanza JR (1987) Survival of pathogenic bacteria in various freshwater sediments. Appl Environ Microbiol 53:633–638
Cabral JPS (2010) Water microbiology. Bacterial pathogens and water. Int J Environ Res Public Health 7:3657–3703
CBHI National Health Profile (2018) 13th issue
Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture (2007) Water for food, water for life: a comprehensive assessment of water management in agriculture. Earthscan, London and International Water Management Institute, Colombo
Cornejova T, Venglovsky J, Gregova G, Kmetova M, Kmet V (2015) Extended spectrum betalactamases in escherichia coli from municipal wastewater. Ann Agric Environ Med 22:447–450
David MM, Haggard BE (2011) Development of regression-based models to predict fecal bacteria numbers at select sites within the Illinois River watershed, Arkansas and Oklahoma, USA. Water Air Soil Pollut 215:525–547
Dooge JCI (2001) Integrated management of water resources. In: Ehlers E, Krafft T (eds) Understanding the earth system: compartments, processes, and interactions. Springer, Heidelberg, p 116
Doran JW, Linn DM (1979) Bacteriological quality of runoff water from pasteureland. Appl Environ Microbiol 37:985–991
Dorevitch S, Pratap P, Wroblewski M, Hryhorczuk DO, Li H, Liu LC, Scheff PA (2012) Health risks of limited-contact water recreation. Environ Health Perspect 120:192–197
Eichmiller JJ, Hicks R, Sadowsky MJ (2013) Distribution of genetic markers of fecal pollution on a freshwater sandy shoreline in proximity to wastewater effluent. Environ Sci Technol 47:3395–3402
Ellie LB (2007) The correlation of fecal coliform and turbidity of the little Tallapoosa River in the West Georgia Region. In: GSA Denver annual meeting, 28–31 Oct 2007
EPA (2009) Source water protection practices bulletin. Managing stormwater runoff to prevent contamination of drinking water; Office of Water (4606); United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Washington, DC, USA
Gerald P (2011) Water science. University of Washington. Available Online at http://faculty.washington.edu/ghp/researcthemes/water-science
Hendricks CW (1978) Exceptions to the coliform and the fecal coliform tests. In: Berg G (eds) Indicators of viruses in water and food. Ann Arbor Sci 99–145 (Ann Arbor, MI)
Hughes KA (2003) Influence of seasonal environmental variables on the distribution of presumptive fecal coliforms around an antarctic research station. Appl Environ Microbiol 69:4884–4891
India Water Portal (2019) Available Online at https://www.indiawaterportal.org/
Indian Standard Drinking Water Specification (2012) (Second Revision), IS 10500:2012
Juhna T (2007) Effect of phosphorus on survival of escherichia coli in drinking water biofilms. Appl Environ Microbiol 73:3755–3758
Kalantari N, Ghaffari S (2008) Evaluation of toxicity of heavy metals for Escherichia coli growth. Iran J Environ Health Sci Eng 5:173–178
Kim C (2000) Roles of oxidation–reduction potential in electrolyzed oxidizing and chemically modified water for the inactivation of food-related pathogens. J Food Prot 63:19–24
Kim C, Wilkins K, Bowers M, Wynn C, Ndegwa E (2018) Influence of pH and temperature on growth characteristics of leading foodborne pathogens in a laboratory medium and select food beverages. Austin Food Sci 3:1031
Kreske AC (2008) Effects of pH, dissolved oxygen, and ionic strength on the survival of escherichia coli O157:H7 in organic acid solutions. J Food Prot 71:2404–2409
MacConkey A (1909) Further observations on the differentiation of lactose-fermenting bacilli with special reference to those of intestinal origin. J Hydrol 9:86–103
Madoux-Humery A-S, Dorner S, Sauve S, Aboulfadl K, Galarneau M, Servais P, Prevost M (2016) The effects of combined sewer overflow on riverine sources of drinking water. Water Resour 92:218–227
Medema GJ, Shaw S, Waite M, Snozzi M, Morreau A, Grabow W (2003) Catchment characteristics and source water quality. In: WHO, OECD (eds) Assessing microbial safety of drinking water. Improving approaches and method. IWA Publishing, pp 111–158
Monk JM (2013) Genome-scale metabolic reconstructions of multiple Escherichia coli strains highlight strain-specific adaptations to nutritional environments. In: Presented at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 10 Dec 2013
Nevers M, Boehm A (2011) Modeling fate and transport of fecal bacteria in surface water. In: Sadowsky M, Whitman R (eds) The fecal bacteria. ASM Press, Washington, DC, pp 165–188
Pandey PK, Kass PH, Supir ML, Biswas S, Singh VP (2014) Contamination of water resources by pathogenic bacteria. AMB Express 4:51
Park H (2004) Effects of chlorine and pH on efficacy of electrolyzed water for inactivating escherichia coli O157:H7 and listeria monocytogenes. Int J Food Microbiol 91:13–18
Payus C, Haziqah N, Basri N, Wan VL (2018) Faecal bacteria contaminations in untreated drinking water (Groundwater well and hill water) from rural community areas, pp 215–218
Price GR, Wildeboer D (2017) E-coli as an indicator of contamination and health risk in environmental waters. Recent advances on physiology, pathogenesis and biotechnological applications, pp 125–139
Rompré A, Servais P, Baudart J, de-Roubin MR, Laurent P (2002) Detection and enumeration of coliforms in drinking water: current methods and emerging approaches. J Microbiol Methods 49:31–54
Roslev P, Bjergbæk LA, Hesselsoe M (2004) Effect of oxygen on survival of faecal pollution indicators in drinking water. J Appl Microbiol 96:938–945
Sinaga DM, Robson MG, Gasong BT, Halel AG, Pertiwi D (2016) Fecal coliform bacteria and factors related to its growth at the sekotong shallow wells, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. Public Health Indonesia 2:47–54
Tallon P, Magajna B, Lofranco C, Leung KT (2005) Microbial indicators of faecal contamination in water: a current perspective. Water Air Soil Pollut 139–166
Than AA (2011) Effect of temperatures on the growth of Escherichia coli from water. Univ Res J 4:163
WHO (2011) Guidelines for drinking-water quality, 4th edn. WHO, Geneva, Switzerland
World Health Organization (2017) Diarrhoeal disease. Available Online at http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs330/en
World Health Statistics (2017) WHO
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Khan, F.M., Gupta, R. (2020). Escherichia coli (E. coli) as an Indicator of Fecal Contamination in Groundwater: A Review. In: Jeon, HY. (eds) Sustainable Development of Water and Environment. ICSDWE 2020. Environmental Science and Engineering(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45263-6_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45263-6_21
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-45262-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-45263-6
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)