Urbanization Impacts the Physicochemical Characteristics and Abundance of Fecal Markers and Bacterial Pathogens in Surface Water

Tianma Yuan, Kiran Kumar Vadde, Jonathan D. Tonkin, Jianjun Wang, Jing Lu, Zimeng Zhang, Yixin Zhang, Alan J. McCarthy and Raju Sekar
Additional contact information
Tianma Yuan: Department of Biological Sciences, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou 215123, China
Kiran Kumar Vadde: Department of Biological Sciences, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou 215123, China
Jonathan D. Tonkin: School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand
Jianjun Wang: Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China
Jing Lu: Futurepolis LLC, Suzhou 215021, China
Zimeng Zhang: Institute of Integrative Biology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX, UK
Yixin Zhang: Department of Health and Environmental Sciences, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou 215123, China
Alan J. McCarthy: Microbiology Research Group, Institute of Integrative Biology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZB, UK
Raju Sekar: Department of Biological Sciences, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou 215123, China

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 10, 1-19

Abstract: Urbanization is increasing worldwide and is happening at a rapid rate in China in line with economic development. Urbanization can lead to major changes in freshwater environments through multiple chemical and microbial contaminants. We assessed the impact of urbanization on physicochemical characteristics and microbial loading in canals in Suzhou, a city that has experienced rapid urbanization in recent decades. Nine sampling locations covering three urban intensity classes (high, medium and low) in Suzhou were selected for field studies and three locations in Huangshan (natural reserve) were included as pristine control locations. Water samples were collected for physicochemical, microbiological and molecular analyses. Compared to medium and low urbanization sites, there were statistically significant higher levels of nutrients and total and thermotolerant coliforms (or fecal coliforms) in highly urbanized locations. The effect of urbanization was also apparent in the abundances of human-associated fecal markers and bacterial pathogens in water samples from highly urbanized locations. These results correlated well with land use types and anthropogenic activities at the sampling sites. The overall results indicate that urbanization negatively impacts water quality, providing high levels of nutrients and a microbial load that includes fecal markers and pathogens.

Keywords: urbanization; water quality; nutrients; microbial contaminations; fecal markers; pathogens; Suzhou canals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/10/1739/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/10/1739/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:10:p:1739-:d:231856

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().