Microbial drinking water quality deterioration during distribution and household usage, determined together with citizen scientists

TL;DR

Citizen scientists helped study how drinking water quality changes during transport and storage, finding that stored water is especially vulnerable to microbial growth.

Contribution

Demonstrated the feasibility of citizen science in microbial water quality monitoring and identified deterioration risks during storage.

Findings

Stored drinking water in containers showed increased microbial biomass and altered community composition.

ATP and cell counts were poor indicators of microbial regrowth in the distribution system.

Water from different treatment plants had distinct microbial community signatures.

Abstract

During transport and storage of drinking water the microbial water quality might deteriorate. Here, we studied the vulnerability of non-chlorinated drinking water produced by two treatment plants to deterioration, by involving citizen scientists. Citizen scientists in Amsterdam sampled their drinking water directly from their kitchen tap after overnight stagnation, after flushing and after storage in containers like reusable plastic bottles. Subsequently, prokaryotic cell counts, ATP concentrations and the prokaryotic community composition were determined in the laboratory. The results showed that citizen scientists were able to reliably sample drinking water. The microbiological parameters measured remained stable during drinking water transport in the distribution system, whereas overnight stagnation in the premises plumbing system could result in fluctuations in the microbial biomass parameters and slightly altered the prokaryotic composition. Drinking water storage in containers resulted in a substantially increase in microbial biomass, a decrease in bacterial diversity and a shift in bacterial community composition. Furthermore, sampled drinking water from the distribution system had a specific community composition related to either plant A or B, which could be used to determine the origin of drinking water sampled from mixed zones in the distribution system. Overall, we conclude that stored drinking water is highly susceptible to microbial deterioration. In addition, ATP and flow cytometry cell counts are poor indicators for microbial regrowth in the distribution system and citizen scientists seem able to reliably sample drinking water for microbial analyses.

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