E. coli kinetics--effect of temperature on the maintenance and respectively the decay phase

Abstract

The knowledge of enteric bacteria survival kinetic is very important for environmental scientists. Enteric bacteria and specifically the fecal indicator bacteria are typically used to measure the sanitary quality of water for recreational, industrial, agricultural and water supply purposes. They are released into the environment with feces, and are then exposed to a variety of environmental conditions that eventually cause their death. In general, it is believed that the fecal indicator cannot grow in natural environments, since they are adapted to live in the gastrointestinal tract. Studies have shown that fecal indicator bacteria survive from a few hours up to several days in surface water, but may survive for days or months in lake-sediments, where they may be protected from sunlight and predators. We assume that pathogens similar to the fecal indicator bacteria die at the same rate as fecal indicator bacteria. Therefore, if we find relatively high numbers of fecal indicator bacteria in an environment, we assume that there is an increased likelihood of pathogens being present as well. The kinetic of enteric bacteria survival in natural waters is affected by a large number of factors. One of them is the temperature. The aim of this contribution was the experimental research of the survival kinetic of enteric bacteria applying a simple mathematical formula, which describes the survival kinetic predicting the decay phase at various temperatures. We aspire that the results will lead both to the solution of many engineering problems and to future research.