Dear Anghel If your purpose ...

Published by Robert Pitchers, WRc plc - Technical Consultant

Dear Anghel

If your purpose is monitoring compliance to prescribed standards in regulations (e.g. EU Drinking Water Directive) , then your choice of methods is limited to culture based techniques.

The United Kingdom maintains a series of publications on methods for microbiological examination of drinking water that includes all the organisms on your list (see: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/standing-committee-of-analysts-sca-blue-books). 

The European Microbiology Expert Group maintains a list of the techniques that the European Commission will accept  as alternatives to the the methods specified in the Drinking Water Directive. (see: https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/communities/community/emeg ). 

For operational purposes you are free to use any method. A number of options are available and the previous replies have provided a selection of what is available. In addition, there are online  systems (e.g. MicroLan) for detection of indicator bacteria and total activity. Flow cytometry has proved popular amongst water utilities to give an indication of total microbial count. A web search should provide more information on these systems.

I hope this helps with your decision.

Kind regards

Robert

 

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