Viral pathogens in urban stormwater runoff: Occurrence and removal via vegetated biochar-amended biofilters
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Urban runoff is one of the greatest sources of microbial pollution to surface waters. Biofilters can limit the impact of stormwater runoff on surface water quality by diverting runoff from receiving waters. However, our understanding of how biofilter design choices, including the addition of vegetation and geomedia, may impact the removal of pathogens is lacking. In this study, we characterized viruses (adenovirus, enterovirus, norovirus GII, crAssphage) in San Francisco Bay area urban runoff and assessed the removal of lab-cultured viruses (MS2, adenovirus 2, coxsackievirus B5) from biochar-amended biofilter mesocosms during challenge testing. We quantified viruses using (RT-)qPCR and F+ coliphage plaque assays. We found that all the pathogenic viruses targeted were found at low concentrations (adenovirus: all positive samples were <limit of quantification, enterovirus: <limit of quantification-1.9 x 102 gc/L, norovirus GII: <limit of quantification-1.2 x 102 gc/L) in San Francisco Bay area urban runoff. Biofilters had variable success in removing adenovirus, enterovirus, and MS2 from runoff in laboratory-scale column experiments. In addition, here was no significant difference in the removal of each virus in vegetated versus non-vegetated biofilters, with the exception of MS2 which had slightly higher removal in vegetated biofilters (0.21 log10 units, Welch’s t-test, p=0.02). When comparing removal of human viruses and viral indicators, adenovirus and enterovirus were removed more efficiently (log10-removal adenovirus = 2.9; log10-removal enterovirus = 0.89) than indicator virus MS2 (log10-removal by RT-qPCR = 0.0019, log10-removal by F+ coliphage plaque assay = -0.12). These results provide evidence that MS2 may be a conservative indicator for human virus removal in biofiltration systems, but more work is needed to examine this relationship. Results from this study can help inform design choices regarding biofilters intended to improve water quality and our understanding virus attenuation in biofiltration systems.
Description
| Type of resource | software, multimedia |
|---|---|
| Date created | 2018 - 2021 |
| Publication date | 2021 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Graham, Katherine E. | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Anderson, Claire |
https://orcid.org/https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9626-4964
(unverified)
|
| Associated with | Boehm, Alexandria B. |
https://orcid.org/https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8162-5090
(unverified)
|
Subjects
| Subject | adenovirus |
|---|---|
| Subject | enterovirus |
| Subject | runoff |
| Subject | crAssphage |
| Subject | stormwater |
| Subject | biofilter |
| Subject | biochar |
| Subject | Civil and Environmental Engineering |
| Subject | School of Engineering |
| Genre | Dataset |
| Genre | Quantitative data |
| Genre | Quantitative data |
Bibliographic information
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY).
Preferred citation
- Preferred citation
- Graham, Katherine E. and Anderson, Claire and Boehm, Alexandria. (2021). Viral pathogens in urban stormwater runoff: Occurrence and removal via vegetated biochar-amended biofilters. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/pk916xf8847 https://doi.org/10.25740/pk916xf8847
Collection
Boehm Research Group at Stanford
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