Microbes in water are like invisible travellers – and some carry disease with them. Keeping the water that flows through our treatment plants, rivers and taps healthy and safe from microbial infection is a challenge.
The distribution of microbes varies considerably across time and space. This makes them difficult to track through conventional monitoring programmes which rely on infrequent sampling (monthly or weekly at best) at fixed locations.
When contamination occurs, it can be very episodic (for just a few hours, say) and microbial concentrations can be extremely low. Without advanced and highly sensitive detection methods, some microbes will remain undetected.
