Upscaling bacterial overland transport – a multi-parametric approach

Water contaminated with human and animal enteric pathogens puts public health at serious risk. All countries and regions of the world require highly robust and effective water management and treatment systems to guarantee safe water and protect public health. To this end, we need accurate predictions of the origin of pathogens , how they move through the environment and where they end up.

This study is part of a four-year project and aims to develop new bacterial overland transport - BOT models to provide answers to the above questions. The project takes a holistic, quantitative approach to transfer BOT model parameters onto large scales. Small-scale precipitation experiments are conducted in the laboratory and larger-scale experiments are conducted using a rainfall simulation under real environmental conditions. The state-of-the-art combination of quantitative, microbiological, and molecular methods and parameters will provide the scientific basis for more accurate predictions of BOT, which eventually may be extended to viruses and protozoa in the future.