Introducing bacterial community turnover times to elucidate temporal and spatial hotspots

Researchers from the Interuniversity Cooperation Centre (ICC) Water and Health have proposed a new parameter for assessing the biological instability potential of drinking water. The Bacterial Community Turnover Times (BaCTT) is a new parameter that correlates with ageing, disinfectant residues, temperature and seasonal factors of drinking water. Treatment and transport in drinking water distribution systems can lead to changes in water quality. The work to introduce the parameter "Bacterial Community Turnover Times" was carried out in a large chlorinated drinking water distribution system. A comparison in other distribution systems is still pending. The work was funded by the municipality of Vienna and is part of the ViWA2020+ project. Results have been published open access in the journal "Water Research".

The Interuniversity Cooperation Centre for Water and Health (ICC) is a cooperation of the KL-Division of Water Quality and Health, the Medical University of Vienna, and the Vienna University of Technology and is working on the health-related microbiological and hygienic quality of water. The focus is on the development and application of pioneering methods for analysing water quality in natural and technical systems.

Campostrini, L, Proksch, P, Jakwerth, S, Farnleitner, A & Kirschner, A 2024, 'Introducing bacterial community turnover times to elucidate temporal and spatial hotspots of biological instability in a large Austrian drinking water distribution network', Water Research, vol. 252, 121188, pp. 121188. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2024.121188