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A simple method for assessing leaching risk of bacteria through soils
Author(s) -
Hossain A.,
Townend J.,
Killham K.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
soil use and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.709
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1475-2743
pISSN - 0266-0032
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-2743.2000.tb00177.x
Subject(s) - leaching (pedology) , soil water , environmental science , environmental chemistry , contamination , fertilizer , soil science , environmental engineering , chemistry , agronomy , ecology , biology
. Bacterial contamination of water is a problem worldwide and is often acute in developing countries where human and animal waste is disposed of on land for use as fertilizer or because of poorly developed sanitation systems. Studying leaching risk through soils is difficult when no suitable microbiological laboratory is available. A method using the movement of ZnO particles through soils as a surrogate for studying bacteria directly was tested. ZnO particles with a similar size to bacteria can readily be detected by chemical analysis. For a range of nine different soil textures, leaching rates of ZnO particles under near saturated conditions were significantly correlated with leaching rates of Escherichia coli cells ( P =0.013). For both ZnO and E. coli , leaching was generally greatest through fine textured soils.