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Editorial Board Members’ Collection Series: Water Microbiology and Water Quality
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Editorial Board Members’ Collection Series: Water Microbiology and Water Quality

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Water Quality and Contamination".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2024 | Viewed by 3876

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Terry Gentry

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
Interests: water microbiology; environmental microbiology; microbial source tracking; microbial ecology; bioremediation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. John Brooks

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
United States Department of Agriculture–Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA
Interests: environment; antimicrobial resistance; pathogens; soil; manure; microbial ecology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Water quality is directly impacted by microbial contamination from a wide variety of sources including municipal wastewater, animal agriculture, and natural reservoirs. Despite numerous governmental regulations and water/wastewater treatment technologies, microbial contamination of source, recreational, and domestic water continues to be a global issue. As population growth and climate change result in more intense water reuse, such as managed aquifer recharge and even direct potable reuse, the need for assessing and controlling microbial contamination will become even greater. Fortunately, advances in detection and characterization technologies, including quantitative PCR and microbiome sequencing, have the potential to both increase the accuracy and speed of microbial detection. As illustrated by the recent success of many researchers in the use of wastewater surveillance to detect SARS-CoV-2, these approaches hold great promise for detecting, characterizing, and tracking other pathogens and public health threats, such as antimicrobial-resistant microorganisms, in water supplies. Furthermore, advances in microbial source tracking (MST), quantitative microbial risk assessment, and epidemiological approaches are increasing the potential for the rapid characterization of microbial contaminants in complex water environments and for determining associated public health risks.

This Special Issue seeks to illustrate recent advances in our understanding of microbial water quality issues in environmental and domestic waters along with highlighting methodological advances for detecting and characterizing various microbial contaminants. Topics of interest will focus on one or more microbial aspect(s) of water quality; possible topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Wastewater surveillance;
  • Microbial source tracking;
  • Antimicrobial resistance;
  • Quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA);
  • Water treatment and reuse;
  • Managed aquifer recharge;
  • Aquifer storage and recovery;
  • Water microbiome of the built environment (domestic and indoor);
  • Climate change and extreme weather events (e.g., floods).

Dr. Terry Gentry
Dr. John Brooks
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • water microbiome
  • wastewater surveillance
  • antimicrobial resistance
  • microbial source tracking
  • QMRA
  • public health
  • water reuse
  • managed aquifer recharge

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

6 pages, 436 KiB  
Communication
Wastewater Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in a Prison Facility
by Ocean Thakali, Shalina Shahin and Samendra P. Sherchan
Water 2024, 16(4), 570; https://doi.org/10.3390/w16040570 - 15 Feb 2024
Viewed by 740
Abstract
Prison populations are unlikely to have access to prompt, effective medical care as the general population. Therefore, vaccination and effective surveillance systems have been recommended to mitigate coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) transmission in prison settings. This pilot study aimed to assess the application [...] Read more.
Prison populations are unlikely to have access to prompt, effective medical care as the general population. Therefore, vaccination and effective surveillance systems have been recommended to mitigate coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) transmission in prison settings. This pilot study aimed to assess the application of wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) in a prison to act as an early warning tool for COVID-19 transmission. In this study, weekly wastewater samples (n = 21) were collected for 21 weeks from a prison facility in New Orleans, LA, USA, and analyzed for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and the results were compared with the number of confirmed cases during the same period. SARS-CoV-2 was concentrated using two methods and quantified via RT-qPCR using CDC N1 and N2 assays. Overall, SARS-CoV-2 was detected in eight samples (38%). An equal number of samples tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 using the two concentrating methods, indicating the effectiveness of both methods for building-scale WBE. Despite limited clinical testing in the studied prison facility, instances of SARS-CoV-2 detection in wastewater prior to the diagnosis of COVID-19 depict the potential use of wastewater surveillance in detecting the presence of early and averting outbreaks in asymptomatic COVID-19 patients. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Editorial Board Members’ Collection Series: Water Microbiology and Water Quality)
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15 pages, 1033 KiB  
Article
Enterococcus Species and Their Antimicrobial Resistance in an Urban Watershed Affected by Different Anthropogenic Sources
by Abasiofiok M. Ibekwe, Amarachukwu C. Obayiuwana and Shelton E. Murinda
Water 2024, 16(1), 116; https://doi.org/10.3390/w16010116 - 28 Dec 2023
Viewed by 900
Abstract
Different anthropogenic sources can have a significant influence on bacterial populations and their antimicrobial activities. In this study, the impact of anthropogenic activities on Enterococcus species was studied in an urban watershed in southern California affected by concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), recreational [...] Read more.
Different anthropogenic sources can have a significant influence on bacterial populations and their antimicrobial activities. In this study, the impact of anthropogenic activities on Enterococcus species was studied in an urban watershed in southern California affected by concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), recreational activities, wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), urban runoff, and control sites. Water samples were collected quarterly for two years for the enumeration of Enterococcus species based on the Enterolert most probable-number (MPN) assay. Concentrations of enterococci were higher in the sediment compared to surface water (4.5 × 106 CFU/g of sediment vs. 2.3 × 105 MPN/100 mL of water). The species diversity was dominated by E. mundtii (32%), E. faecalis (27%), and E. faecium (25%). E. faecium exhibited the highest antibiotic-resistant phenotype. Resistances were mostly to ciprofloxacin, erythromycin, and tetracycline. Tetracycline and erythromycin resistance genes, encoded by tet (C, K, O, S) and ermB, respectively, were more common in isolates from sediment (42.9%) compared to water (12.7%). E. mundtii was sensitive to ampicillin, chloramphenicol, gentamicin, and high levels of vancomycin. A significant percentage of E. faecalis were also resistant to these antibiotics. E. faecium and E. faecalis exhibited resistance to multiple antibiotics. Our data suggest that resistant Enterococcus species within the watershed might provide some useful data to determine pollutant types and sources in that watershed. Therefore, the widespread occurrence and abundance of E. faecium and E. faecalis, and their resistance genes associated with multiple antibiotics may potentially pose risks to the local populations exposed to these water sources during recreational activities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Editorial Board Members’ Collection Series: Water Microbiology and Water Quality)
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Graphical abstract

19 pages, 1819 KiB  
Article
Revealing an Abundance of Microbial Fecal Contamination and Multidrug Resistant Bacteria in the Mississippi Gulf Coast
by Maitreyee Mukherjee, Robyn E. Cuthbert, Emma Aitken, Kristi A. Gay, Katonia McKinney and John P. Brooks
Water 2023, 15(13), 2339; https://doi.org/10.3390/w15132339 - 24 Jun 2023
Viewed by 1762
Abstract
(1) Background: The Mississippi Gulf Coast (MGC) has been greatly affected by microbial contamination-related issues in the past several years. (2) Methods: We analyzed water samples collected from ten sites within the MGC across ten months for FIBs and the distribution of AMR/MDR [...] Read more.
(1) Background: The Mississippi Gulf Coast (MGC) has been greatly affected by microbial contamination-related issues in the past several years. (2) Methods: We analyzed water samples collected from ten sites within the MGC across ten months for FIBs and the distribution of AMR/MDR bacteria. (3) Results: The Escherichia coli numbers within nine out the ten studied sites and Enterococcus values within seven out of the ten sites fell well past the water quality criteria established by EPA. Overall, we found very high AMR within both E. coli and Enterococcus isolates, many of which were also MDR. Within the E. coli, 94.6% were resistant to ≥2 antibiotics, 64.5% to ≥3, 41.8% to ≥4, 18.2% to ≥5, and 6.3% to ≥5 antibiotics. MDR patterns in Enterococcus were 87.3% belonging to the ≥2 category, 66.4% belonging to the ≥3, 37.9% falling into the ≥4, 17.9% were in the ≥5, 8.4% in the ≥6, and 3.6% in the ≥7 antibiotics. (4) Conclusions: Overall, data collected suggest the prevalence of concerning levels of FIBs along the Mississippi Gulf Coast revealing a remarkably high percentage of these FIBs being resistant to multiple antibiotics, a concerning number of which were also found to be MDR. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Editorial Board Members’ Collection Series: Water Microbiology and Water Quality)
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