Bacteria communities and water quality parameters in riverine water and sediments near wastewater discharges

Abstract

Wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) discharges alter water quality and microbial communities by introducing human-associated bacteria in the environment and by altering microbial communities. To fully understand this impact, it is crucial to study whether WWTP discharges affect water and sediments microbial communities in comparable ways and whether such effects depend on specific environmental variables. Here, we present a dataset investigating the impact of a WWTP on water quality and bacterial communities by comparing samples collected directly from the WWTP outflow to surface waters and sediments at two sites above and two sites below it over a period of five months. When possible, we measured five physicochemical variables (e.g., temperature, turbidity, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, and salinity), four bioindicators (e.g., Escherichia coli, total coliforms, Enterococcus sp., and endotoxins), and two molecular indicators (e.g., intI1’s relative abundance, and 16S rRNA gene profiling). Preliminary results suggest that bioindicators correlate with environmental variables and that bacterial communities present in the water tables, sediments, and treated water differ greatly in composition and structure.

Measurement(s)	temperature of water • conductivity of water • dissolved oxygen in water • salinity of water • Concentration of Escherichia coli in water • Concentration of total coliforms in water • Concentration of Enterococcus sp. • Concentration of endotoxins in water • Relative abundance of integron 1 in water • Bacterial 16S RNA
Technology Type(s)	YSI field probe • Colilert dection system • Enterolert dection system • Charles River Endosafe system • quantitative PCR • Illumina Sequencing
Sample Characteristic - Organism	Bacteria
Sample Characteristic - Environment	Fresh water river
Sample Characteristic - Location	United States