Design and Implementation of Monitoring and Modeling Methods to Evaluate Microbial Quality of Surface Water Sources Used for Irrigation

Objective 1 - Elucidate spatial variability of indicator bacteria concentrations in surface waters (e.g., streams, ponds, reservoirs), and describe factors responsible for this variability. Sub-objective 1.A. Research and quantify lateral patterns of indicator bacteria concentrations in ponds and reservoirs, and evaluate the effect of algal populations, flow patterns and water quality parameters on these patterns. Sub-objective 1.B. Research and quantify patterns of vertical indicator bacteria distributions in water column in ponds and reservoirs. Sub-objective 1.C. Develop a model to estimate indicator bacteria concentrations at the intake of irrigation water based on vertical and lateral indicator bacteria distributions in the water of pond or reservoir. Objective 2 - Elucidate temporal variability of indicator bacteria concentrations in watersheds as a function of land use and meteorological conditions, and develop/validate predictive models. Sub-objective 2.A. Develop a model to evaluate stream bottom sediment as an indicator bacteria source between rainfall events. Sub-objective 2.B. Research survival of manure-borne indicator bacteria in soil to predict contribution of soil E. coli reservoir to runoff leaving fields and pastures. Sub-objective 2.C. Develop a modeling-based method for site-specific optimization of stream water sampling scheduling to provide the most representative indicator bacteria concentrations in irrigation water for a given annual number of samples.