Transport of Escherichia coli strains isolated from natural spring water

We present a new methodology to scale up bacteria transport experiments carried out in the laboratory to practical field situations. The key component of the methodology is to characterize bacteria transport not by a constant sticking efficiency, but by a range of sticking efficiency values determined from laboratory column experiments. In this study, initially, we harvested six Escherichia coli strains from springs in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, and then we carried out a number of experiments with 1.5m high columns of quartz sand with various sampling ports in order to determine the fraction of bacteria as a function of sticking efficiency. Furthermore, we developed a simple mathematical formulation, based on the steady-state analytical solution for the transport of mass in the subsurface, to arrive at bacteria concentrations as a function of transport distance. The results of the quartz sand column experiments indicated that the fractional bacteria mass and sticking efficiency of most of the strains we harvested could be adequately described by a power law. When applying the power distributions to the field situation in Kampala, we found that the transport distance required to reduce bacteria concentrations with five log units ranged from 1.5 to 23m, and this was up to three times more than when using a constant sticking efficiency. The methodology we describe is simple, can be carried out in a spreadsheet, and in addition to parameters describing transport, like pore water flow velocity and dispersion, only two constants are required, which define the relation between sticking efficiency and percentage of bacteria mass. ► Laboratory transport experiments is applied to characterize the sticking efficiency of bacteria by a range of values. ► A mathematical formulation is developed to extrapolate bacterial concentration as a function of transport distance. ► Fraction of cells retained as a function of sticking efficiency was best described by a power-law distribution. ► Extrapolation of method to the field indicated that 5 log reduction in bacterial concentration is achievable within 23m.