Bacterial community analysis of recreational beach waters reveals human fecal contamination and pathogenicity across varying field conditions

IF 11.4 1区环境科学与生态学 Q1 ENGINEERING, ENVIRONMENTAL

Water Research Pub Date : 2025-04-22 DOI:10.1016/j.watres.2025.123697

Dong Li , Laurie C. Van De Werfhorst , Rachel T. Noble , Denene Blackwood , Jared Ervin , Brandon Steets , Jen Smith , Patricia A. Holden

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Abstract

Assessing human fecal contamination of recreational beach waters is a public health challenge owing to multiple sources and environmental conditions affecting indicator, pathogen, and source marker relationships. Human fecal-associated markers, such as HF183, accurately indicate human waste, but reliance on individual markers risks false negative diagnoses, owing to marker source loading variations and attenuation. Bacterial community analysis is a data-dense approach that could improve the accuracy of human waste detection, but relatedness to actual human health hazards under complex coastal water conditions is unproven. Here, two Malibu and one Pacific Palisades, CA recreational beaches differing in urbanization and sewerage were studied over two years across varying seasonal rainfall, and beach berm, conditions. Fecal indicator bacteria (FIB), HF183, and human norovirus concentrations were quantified and related to bacterial community 16S rRNA gene sequences which were further analyzed for putative human pathogens and sewage proportions. All lower watersheds harbored human fecal sources, and surf zone contamination was enhanced by rainfall runoff with berm breaching, which intensified with urbanization. Notably, for sequenced surf zone waters sampled across all weather conditions (n = 36), sequence-based putative pathogen proportions correlated with qPCR HF183 concentrations (w/ and w/o PMA treatment; p = 0.0) and with human norovirus G1concentrations (p = 0.04) which also correlated with HF183 sequence abundance in bacterial communities (p = 0.02). Although human fecal sources appeared to vary seasonally and a range of physical conditions influenced surf zone fecal contamination, human fecal contamination and associated health hazard were reliably evidenced by bacterial community analysis in this study.

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休闲海滩水域的细菌群落分析揭示了不同野外条件下人类粪便污染和致病性

评估休闲海滩水域的人类粪便污染是一项公共卫生挑战，因为有多种来源和环境条件影响指标、病原体和来源标记物的关系。人类粪便相关标记物，如HF183，可以准确地指示人类粪便，但由于标记物源负荷的变化和衰减，依赖于单个标记物有假阴性诊断的风险。细菌群落分析是一种数据密集的方法，可以提高人类废物检测的准确性，但在复杂的沿海水条件下，与实际人类健康危害的关系尚未得到证实。在这里，研究了两个马里布海滩和一个太平洋帕利塞兹海滩，在不同的季节降雨和海滩护堤条件下，在城市化和污水处理方面存在差异。定量测定粪便指示菌（FIB）、HF183和人诺如病毒浓度，并与细菌群落16S rRNA基因序列相关，进一步分析推定的人类病原体和污水比例。所有下游流域都存在人类粪便源，并且随着城市化进程的加剧，雨水径流与堤岸决口加剧了冲浪带污染。值得注意的是，对于在所有天气条件下采样的测序冲浪区水域（n = 36），基于序列的推定病原体比例与qPCR HF183浓度相关(w/和w/o PMA处理；p = 0.0)，与人诺如病毒g1浓度相关（p = 0.04），与细菌群落HF183序列丰度相关（p = 0.02）。虽然人类粪便来源似乎随季节而变化，并且一系列物理条件影响着冲浪区粪便污染，但本研究中的细菌群落分析可靠地证明了人类粪便污染和相关的健康危害。

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来源期刊

Water Research 环境科学-工程：环境

CiteScore

20.80

自引率

9.40%

发文量

1307

审稿时长

38 days

期刊介绍： Water Research, along with its open access companion journal Water Research X, serves as a platform for publishing original research papers covering various aspects of the science and technology related to the anthropogenic water cycle, water quality, and its management worldwide. The audience targeted by the journal comprises biologists, chemical engineers, chemists, civil engineers, environmental engineers, limnologists, and microbiologists. The scope of the journal include: •Treatment processes for water and wastewaters (municipal, agricultural, industrial, and on-site treatment), including resource recovery and residuals management; •Urban hydrology including sewer systems, stormwater management, and green infrastructure; •Drinking water treatment and distribution; •Potable and non-potable water reuse; •Sanitation, public health, and risk assessment; •Anaerobic digestion, solid and hazardous waste management, including source characterization and the effects and control of leachates and gaseous emissions; •Contaminants (chemical, microbial, anthropogenic particles such as nanoparticles or microplastics) and related water quality sensing, monitoring, fate, and assessment; •Anthropogenic impacts on inland, tidal, coastal and urban waters, focusing on surface and ground waters, and point and non-point sources of pollution; •Environmental restoration, linked to surface water, groundwater and groundwater remediation; •Analysis of the interfaces between sediments and water, and between water and atmosphere, focusing specifically on anthropogenic impacts; •Mathematical modelling, systems analysis, machine learning, and beneficial use of big data related to the anthropogenic water cycle; •Socio-economic, policy, and regulations studies.