Chapter 1 - 2

02 Environmental science

Detecting Bacterial Contamination in water supplies

Contemporary water treatment methods allow governments to treat water infested with potentially harmful bacteria and make it drinkable.

While these methods make tap water entirely safe to drink, it is not practical to treat all of the world’s surface water in this fashion.

Thus, people who use untreated water for recreational purposes are at risk of ingesting harmful bacteria.

As a solution, the British government and a number of other countries within the European Union are working together.

Their goal is to produce a method that can be employed to prevent bacterial contamination of lakes, rivers, and oceans.

This method, however, does not actually cleanse the water.

Rather, it is used to evaluate which areas in a region may contribute to water contamination.

It is especially useful near agricultural regions.

These areas are where contamination is most likely to occur.

Large amounts of animal waste in these areas increase the possibility of harmful contaminations making their way into water.

This new method will be used to test the agricultural regions and determine where preventative measures are needed.

Due to the high amount of animal waste used and produced by the agriculture industry, analysts have adjusted their efforts especially to such areas.

When precipitation occurs near facilities that hold animals, it is possible that contaminants will be picked up from waste material and run into water sources.

In addition, many vegetable farmers may use animal waste to fertilize their fields.

This can also contaminate runoff water.

As these processes are necessary to provide food for a country, it is impossible to stop them entirely.

Instead, these new methods are being employed to locate particular spots that are most likely to cause contamination.

These methods involve taking a number of soil samples from any given agricultural area and bringing them to a lab.

The samples are analyzed to count bacteria.

Those with particularly high concentrations of bacteria are matched with the region they were taken from.

Researchers can then return to high-risk areas and help local people take measures to prevent contamination by runoff.

For instance, farmers might avoid heavily watering a high-risk field.

By watering high-risk fields more frequently using less water, the risk of contamination by runoff is minimized.

Since water is less likely to run out of the field this way, it is also less likely to work its way into public water sources.

The methods can be adjusted in regions where pollution is already occurring.

Finding the most intense sources of pollution allows experts to focus their attention on the few areas that need the most work.

These efforts represent preventative methods that governments are employing in an attempt to stop environmental crises before they occur.

In using this mode of analysis and responding accordingly to the results, a community can pinpoint sources of serious pollution.

They can then address them before their water becomes contamination.

In the long run, these efforts will prove valuable in preventing sickness and making water safer to use for recreation.