Microbiome of Drinking Water Distribution Systems

The microbial ecology of a Mediterranean chlorinated drinking water distribution systems in the city of Valencia (Spain)

“…The origin of microorganisms in DWDS is diverse, from treated water carry-through, in situ growth during distribution or in associated assets such as tanks and reservoirs, maintenance or repair operations and intrusion or contamination events (Gheisi et al, 2016;Medema et al, 2013). Most of the microbial biomass in DWDS is found attached to infrastructure as complex biofilms (Chan et al, 2019), composed by bacteria, archaea, fungi, viruses, and protists (Mathieu et al, 2019). Bacteria are the domain most studied, however understanding the need to study fungi is increasing due to associations that link its capacities to reduce the quality of supplied drinking water and its pathogenicity (Babič et al, 2017;Hageskal et al, 2009).…”

Phosphate Dosing in Drinking Water Distribution Systems Promotes Changes in Biofilm Structure and Functional Genetic Diversity

“…In DWDS, microorganism not only inhabit bulk water, they can be found forming biofilms on the inner pipe surfaces (Douterelo et al, 2013), representing more than 98% of biomass within DWDS (Liu et al, 2014). Biofilms are diverse microbial consortia composed of bacteria, fungi, archaea, viruses, and protists (Hull et al, 2019;Mathieu et al, 2019), which are embedded in a matrix of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) (Donlan and Costerton, 2002). These organisms had complex interactions with the pipe environment and between them and are responsible for causing several problems in DWDS.…”