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Microbial Quality of Rainwater Harvested from Rooftops, for Domestic use and Homestead Food Gardens

Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2015.

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Other Authors: Korsten, Lise
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: University of Pretoria 2015
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access_status_str Open Access
author2 Korsten, Lise
author_browse Korsten, Lise
author_facet Korsten, Lise
collection Thesis
dc_rights_str_mv © 2015 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria.
description Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2015.
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institution University of Pretoria (South Africa)
language English
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:38:21.509Z
license_str Other — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository
publishDate 2015
publishDateRange 2015
publishDateSort 2015
publisher University of Pretoria
publisherStr University of Pretoria
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spelling oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/46015 Microbial Quality of Rainwater Harvested from Rooftops, for Domestic use and Homestead Food Gardens Korsten, Lise Chidamba, Lizyben UCTD Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2015. A significant number of rural households in South Africa do not have access to piped water and depend on traditional water sources including river, stream, well or pond which have potential health risks. Rainwater harvesting, a technique used to collect and store rainwater that runs off from roofs can help mitigate potable water challenges. Roof harvested rainwater (RHRW) is generally considered to be safe and is mostly used without prior treatment, which exposes people to several health risks associated with faecal pathogens. Health risks evaluation based on faecal indicator bacteria including Escherichia coli, faecal coliforms and enterococci revealed significant levels of contamination in RHRW. Enterococci were more prevalent in RHRW than any other faecal indicator bacteria suggesting their suitability as faecal indicator bacteria in this water system. Evaluation of Enterococcus spp. prevalence in pigeon faecal samples (364 isolates) showed the four species; E. faecalis (20.5%), E. mundtii (20.51%), E. faecium(23.1%) and E. caseliflavus (17.3%) to be the most prevalent, whereas E. caseliflavus (34.6%) and E. mundtii (33.2%) were more prevalent in RHRW. The use of matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionisation time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) for the characterisation of E. coli environmental isolates was evaluated as a potential tool for bacterial source tracking. Support vector machine (SVM) generated classification algorithms were able to distinguish between thirty-one different strain groups at overall accuracies between 94% and 98%. Antibiotic resistance testing among E. coli isolated from RHRW (109 isolates) and pigeon faecal samples (130 isolates) showed ampicillin (22.7.9%), gentamicin (23.6%), amikacin (24%), tetracycline (17.4) and amoxicillin (16.9%) to be the most frequently encountered forms of resistance. However, a relatively higher proportion of isolates from pigeon faeces were antibiotic resistant than those from RHRW. Pyrosequencing analysis of 16S rDNA from RHRW showed the phylum Proteobacteria (80.5%) and the classes Betaproteobacteria (50.35%), Alphaproteobacteria (16.19%), Verrucomicrobiae (6.59%), Planctomycetacia (5.69%) and Sphingobacteria (3%) to be dominant. Pathogenic signatures were detected for Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas, Clostridia, Chromobacterium, Yersinia and Serratia, with Legionella signatures being the most prevalent in the samples. The data gathered here will allow for the implementation of a more detailed and accurate health risk assessment for the safe use of RHRW in South African rural communities. tm2015 Microbiology and Plant Pathology PhD Unrestricted 2015-07-02T11:06:23Z 2015-07-02T11:06:23Z 2015/04/22 2015 Thesis Chidamba, L 2015, Microbial Quality of Rainwater Harvested from Rooftops, for Domestic use and Homestead Food Gardens, PhD Thesis, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd <http://hdl.handle.net/2263/46015> A2015 http://hdl.handle.net/2263/46015 en © 2015 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. application/pdf University of Pretoria
spellingShingle UCTD
Microbial Quality of Rainwater Harvested from Rooftops, for Domestic use and Homestead Food Gardens
title Microbial Quality of Rainwater Harvested from Rooftops, for Domestic use and Homestead Food Gardens
title_full Microbial Quality of Rainwater Harvested from Rooftops, for Domestic use and Homestead Food Gardens
title_fullStr Microbial Quality of Rainwater Harvested from Rooftops, for Domestic use and Homestead Food Gardens
title_full_unstemmed Microbial Quality of Rainwater Harvested from Rooftops, for Domestic use and Homestead Food Gardens
title_short Microbial Quality of Rainwater Harvested from Rooftops, for Domestic use and Homestead Food Gardens
title_sort microbial quality of rainwater harvested from rooftops for domestic use and homestead food gardens
topic UCTD
url http://hdl.handle.net/2263/46015