Student: Tracy Perkins
Company: Dŵr Cymru Cyf
Academic Supervisor: Dr James McDonald & Prof David Jones
Anthropogenic activity resulting from agriculture, storm water discharge and sewage treatment has a significant impact upon the transport of human microbial pathogens from catchment to coast. As the global climate changes and storm and flood events become more frequent, it is imperative that we understand how the increased flow of microbial pathogens from land to sea will affect human health and the environment.
The role of estuarine habitats as a reservoir of microbial pathogens is a new and novel aspect to the story of microbial pollution in rivers, estuaries and coastal habitats. By using a suite of multi-disciplinary techniques pathogen concentrations within sediments can be assessed.
Molecular and culture- based methods will be used to determine pathogen load, viability, community composition and interaction with sediments in order to characterise the mechanisms that underpin the transport and persistence of pathogens in the Conwy catchment.
