Harnessing catchment hydrology and soil and water assessment tools for predicting microbial pollution in rivers and streams during flood events

In streams and rivers, elevated level of microbial pollution is a major concern because it can impact public and animal health negatively, and has potential to transport infectious diseases and outbreaks from upstream to downstream. During storm and extreme precipitation events, flood water containing runoff, overflowing septic tanks,  untreated water, sediment particles, and particle attached pathogens and fecal coliforms, and consequential microbial contamination poses substantial risks to human health, and mitigating these risks requires understanding of pathogen fate and transport at catchment and subbasins scales. The use of catchment hydrology driven model can be particularly useful for predicting microbial pollution in ambient water during flood events. In this study, a FORTRAN based program was developed to determine the particle attached and water borne pathogen transport in river and streams, and the model was integrated with the soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) tool to determine the microbial pathogen levels in rivers and streams to evaluate microbial water risks and microbial loads in water column and bed sediments during storm and flood events