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Choi, Lee, Kim, Kim, Ji, Jeong, Yoo, and Cho: Effects of Rainfall on Microbial Water Quality on Haeundae and Gwangan Swimming Beach
Original Article

J Bacteriol Virol 2016;46(2):71-83.

Published online: 9 February 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4167/jbv.2016.46.2.71

Effects of Rainfall on Microbial Water Quality on Haeundae and Gwangan Swimming Beach

Seoung-Hwa Choi∗, Seung-Min Lee, Gyeong-Seon Kim, Mi-Hee Kim, Hwa-Seong Ji, Yu-Na Jeong, Eun-Chul Yoo, Jeong-Gu Cho

Busan Metropolitan City Institute of Health & Environment, Busan 46616, Korea

∗Corresponding author: Seoung-Hwa Choi. Busan Metropolitan City Institute of Health & Environment, 120, Hambakbong-ro 140 beon-gil, Buk-gu, Busan 46616, Korea. Phone: +82-51-309-2918, Fax: +82-51-309-2969, e-mail: csw95@korea.kr

∗∗ This work was supported partly by a grant from the R&D research program, Ministry of Environment, National Institute of Environmental Research, Republic of Korea (076-1900-1946-309330).

Received 12 April 20163 May 2016       Accepted 17 May 2016

Copyright © 2016 Journal of Bacteriology and Virology

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

The associations between storm events, urban runoff and costal water quality have not been well investigated in Korea. A temporal and spatial analysis during summer, 2015 was conducted to determine associates between urban runoff and fecal indicator bacteria (Escherichia coli, Enterococcus) levels at two popular coastal beaches (Gwanganri beach and Haundae beach) in Busan. In this study, a clear relationship between rainfall and elevated number of indicators was observed. Two beaches met the costal beach water health standards after less than 3.0 mm of rain. Only for storms less than 2.5 mm was no observable rainfall effect. Our results revealed that exceedances were greatest in 5 hours following 41.0~45.5 rainfall, then declined the bacterial concentrations in 8 hours after the storm and they generally returned to levels below water health standards within 10~14 hours. But it took 2.7 days to get the level of water quality of dry days. The time required for water quality recovery depends on the intensity and duration of rainfall. In the event of intense rainfall issuance of beach closure by public authorities is warranted to protect public health.

Keywords: Coastal beach, E. coli, Enterococcus, Rainfall, Runoff, Costal water quality

REFERENCES

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Figure 1.
Study area and monitoring points.
jbv-46-71f1.tif
Figure 2.
Variability of Enterococcus and E. coli at Haeundae (HW) and Gwanganri (GA) in Dry days (Dry) and Wet days (Wet). The stripes indicate wet days.
jbv-46-71f2.tif
Figure 3.
3.0 mm Rainfall for 5.5 hours and concentration of Enterococcus and E. coli at 5 sampling sites of Haeundae (A) and Gwanganri (B). The dot lines indicate costal beach water health standards.
jbv-46-71f3.tif
Figure 4.
41.5 mm rainfall for 11.5 hours and concentration of Enterococcus and E. coli at 5 sampling sites of Haeundae (A) and Gwanganri (B). The dot lines indicate costal beach water health standards.
jbv-46-71f4.tif
Figure 5.
54.5 mm Rainfall for 19.5 hours and concentration of Enterococcus and E. coli at 5 sampling sites of Haeundae (A) and Gwanganri (B). The dot lines indicate costal beach water health standards
jbv-46-71f5.tif
Figure 6.
45.5 mm Rainfall for 3 days and concentration of Enterococcus and E. coli at 5 sampling sites of Haeundae (A) and Gwanganri (B). The dot lines indicate costal beach water health.
jbv-46-71f6.tif
Table 1.
Rainfall information and sampling time for the rainfall sampled during the wet days
Rainfall event Date & time Rainfall (mm) Duration (h) Maximum rainfall intensity (mm/h) Sampling start time
1 2015/6/11 10:50 ~ 16:20 3.0 5.5 1.0 ① 2015/6/10 17:00
1 2015/6/11 10:50 16:20 3.0 5.5 1.0 ② 2015/6/11 17:00
          ① 2015/6/25 15:00
          ② 2015/6/25 21:00
2 2015/6/25 17:50 ~ 2015/6/26 06:20 41.5 11.5 12.5 ③ 2015/6/26 11:00
          ④ 2015/6/26 14:00
          ⑤ 2015/6/26 16:00
          ① 2015/7/13 15:00
          ② 2015/7/14 11:00
  2015/7/11 17:30 ~ 20:00 4.0 3.5 2.5 ③ 2015/7/14 16:00
3 2015/7/12 03:30 ~ 19:30 50.5 16.0 10.5  
    [54.5] [19.5]   ④ 2015/7/15 11:00
          ⑤ 2015/7/15 16:00
          ⑥ 2015/7/16 11:00
  2015/9/1 00:00 ~ 05:50 27.5 5.8 7.5  
4 2015/9/2 18:00 ~ 18:20 15.0 0.3 11.0 ① 2015/9/5 10:00
  2015/9/3 00:40 ~ 01:00 3.0 1.0 1.0 ② 2015/9/5 16:00
  14:40 ~ 15:20 [45.5] [7.1]    
Table 2.
Geometric mean (GM), minimum (Min), maximum (Max) of each parameter, and significance level (p-value) using paired t-test for comparing the variation between dry days and wet days at Haeundae beach
Parameter Unit Dry daysa Wet daysb Sig. level (p)
GM Min Max GM Min Max
Enterococcus MPN/100 ml 2 1 21 17 1 960 0.000
E. coli MPN/100 ml 15 5 150 186 5 7300 0.000
Salinity PSU 32.9 32.6 33.8 32.0 31.0 33.2 0.002
Turbidity NTU 2.804 1.400 4.600 3.874 0.600 33.900 0.025
Chemical oxygen demand mg/l 1.4 0.6 3.2 0.8 0.1 2.5 0.016
Total organic carbon mg/l 1.3 1.3 1.4 1.4 1.1 2.6 0.480
Total suspended solid mg/l 7.8 4.5 12.8 12.1 2.1 45.0 0.001
Ammonia nitrogen mg/l 0.019 0.003 0.265 0.280 0.036 1.183 0.000
Total nitrogen mg/l 0.059 0.044 0.072 0.416 0.034 1.121 0.021
Total phosphorus mg/l 0.023 0.014 0.032 0.022 0.002 0.067 0.001
Water temperature ℃ 20.6 20.2 21.1 21.9 19.6 23.5 0.011
pH - 8.1 7.9 8.2 8.1 8.1 8.2 0.679

a Days with no rain at least for 3 days

b Days with more than 2.5 mm of rain

Table 3.
Geometric mean (GM), minimum (Min), maximum (Max) of each parameter, and significance level (p-value) using paired t-test for comparing the variation between dry days and wet days at Gwanganri beach
Parameter Unit Dry daysa Wet daysb Sig. level (p)
GM Min Max GM Min Max
Enterococcus MPN/100 ml 4 1 49 40 1 3200 0.002
E. coli MPN/100 ml 38 5 310 613 16 24000 0.000
Salinity PSU 32.0 31.3 32.5 30.1 26.7 32.4 0.007
Turbidity NTU 5.933 2.900 9.600 8.333 1.500 35.600 0.102
Chemical oxygen demand mg/l 3.0 1.2 8.1 2.1 0.7 6.6 0.035
Total organic carbon mg/l 2.1 1.4 4.0 1.5 1.1 2.4 0.000
Total suspended solid mg/l 11.7 7.5 44.7 21.3 7.1 67.9 0.000
Ammonia nitrogen mg/l 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.170 0.001 1.213 0.000
Total nitrogen mg/l 0.266 0.233 0.323 0.685 0.131 1.625 0.038
Total phosphorus mg/l 0.039 0.036 0.042 0.051 0.009 0.105 0.000
Water temperature ℃ 21.6 20.8 22.4 21.5 18.9 23.3 0.944
pH - 8.2 8.2 8.2 8.1 8.1 8.3 0.084

a Days with no rain at least for 3 days

b Days with more than 2.5 mm of rain

Table 4.
Inactivation coeffients (K d) and time to decrease bacterial concentration by water quality standard during June 25 ~ June 26
Costal beach Indicator bacteria K d T st (h)a
Haeundae beach Enterococci E. coli -0.548 -0.289 8.0 10.8
Gwanganri beach Enterococci E. coli -0.263 -0.291 13.0 13.9

a T st: Time for bacterial concentration to decrease by water quality standard

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