The environmental authority of Taiwan has announced that ocean quality standard A, with E. coli less than 1,000 CFU/100 mL is safe for swimming. Ta-An Beach in central Taiwan was found to have exceeded 1,000 CFU/100 mL, which is 51% of the total monitoring records. Sewage, piggery and duck wastewater are discharged directly into this area. The traditional pollution source trace methods did not clearly identify the pollution source. This study used PCR-DGGE technology to establish micro-organisms fingerprints from water samples using comparative analysis with microbiological composition, and then determined the possible sources of biological contamination. The E. coli colonies at all samples were processed using linear regression analysis and compared with each other. The R2 is 0.4102–0.7387 for the livestock farm and beach. This shows a positively relation. The piggery impact is more obvious. The beach microbial communities exhibited high similarity with piggery wastewater from the upstream region. We confirmed that the major pollution source for Ta-An Beach comes from piggery wastewater. The proposed method has high stability and reliability. It can be used as the basis for rapid identification of pollution sources at other beach water sites in the future.
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Research Article|
November 01 2010
Tracking biological pollution sources using PCR-DGGE technology at Ta-An Beach
Shu-Min Shen;
Shu-Min Shen
1Graduate School of Engineering Science and Technology, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Yunlin, Chinese Taiwan
3No.123, Sec.3, University Rd., Douliou City, Yunlin County 64002, Chinese Taiwan
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Hoei-Yuan Hwang;
1Graduate School of Engineering Science and Technology, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Yunlin, Chinese Taiwan
3No.123, Sec.3, University Rd., Douliou City, Yunlin County 64002, Chinese Taiwan
E-mail: hwang0145@gmail.com
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Hung-Yuan Fang
Hung-Yuan Fang
2Professor, Department of Safety Health and Environmental Engineering, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Yunlin, Chinese Taiwan
3No.123, Sec.3, University Rd., Douliou City, Yunlin County 64002, Chinese Taiwan
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Water Sci Technol (2010) 62 (10): 2235–2245.
Citation
Shu-Min Shen, Hoei-Yuan Hwang, Hung-Yuan Fang; Tracking biological pollution sources using PCR-DGGE technology at Ta-An Beach. Water Sci Technol 1 November 2010; 62 (10): 2235–2245. doi: https://doi.org/10.2166/wst.2010.465
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