Editorial for special issue on shifting paradigms in assessment of recreational water quality

摘要

Ambient water quality is regulated in most industrialized countries in the developed world. A chief concern is the exposure of recreational users to human pathogens. For more than one hundred years the methods used to test for microbial contamination in rivers, lakes and near-shore coastal environments have mirrored those used for the assessment of drinking water quality, namely, fecal indicator bacteria (FIB). The underlying assumption is that FIB decay in the environment at rates that mimic those of pathogens, including bacteria, protozoa and viruses.