The paper ‘Performance of on-site flow cytometry for near-real-time microbiological analysis of alpine karst drinking water resources’ was published in the latest issue of the top journal npj Clean Water, a Springer Nature journal.
In this study, the fully automated BactoSense flow cytometer from bNovate, which has been on the market since 2017, was used. The instruments functioned reliably under difficult field conditions and detected soil-associated and faecal microbial contaminants from catchment surface runoff just as well as the physico-chemical proxy parameters currently in use.
The combination of microbiological and abiotic (near-) real-time indicators achieved the best results in predicting faecal pollution from diffuse sources. The complementary use of automated flow cytometry thus shows great potential for water safety planning by enabling timely and specific measures to be taken to ensure water quality.