AN ASSESSMENT OF CHEMICAL TRACERS FOR TRACKING FECAL CONTAMINATION OF WATER SOURCES AND HOW THEY CAN BE APPLIED TO OLIGOTROPHIC WATER BODIES

This study assessed the chemical substances that can be used to investigate fecal contamination of surface waters and how they can be used to indicate and trace fecal contamination in oligotrophic rivers of Northern Sweden. It was found that, from previous studies, several chemicals can be used to trace fecal contamination of surface water, and these include pharmaceuticals, personal care products, sterols, stanols and bile acids. Pharmaceuticals have been successfully used to indicate fecal contamination in many tropical countries and some countries in the cold regions and thus can also be applied to oligotrophic rivers. Sterols, stanols and bile acids make it possible to accurately indicate and trace the different sources of fecal contamination and can also be used to distinguish between the different organisms from which those sterols and bile acids emanate. For these groups of chemicals analytical methods such as chromatography and mass spectrometry are used to decipher the different chemicals in the test samples of water or sediment. Overall, these methods can be used concurrently but the sterols and bile acids have more specificity compared to the pharmaceuticals and personal care products
2021-07-06