Towards the development and design of in-situ faecal matter sensing platforms for aquatic environments.

Abstract

Standard methods for the assessment of faecal contamination of water rely on laboratory-based techniques, which are time-consuming,labour-intensive and unable to be employed for continuous monitoring. Currently, 18 hours are required after sampling for the analysis to be performed. Our focus is to develop a remotesensing platform able to continuously monitor and provide near real-time measurements of Escherichia Coli(E.Coli)in environmental waters. The detection and quantification of E.Coli is studied using the activity of β-D-glucuronidase(GUD) marker enzyme.