Comparison of geostatistical methods for estimating virus inactivation rates in ground water

Technical Report · Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1987

OSTI ID:6841120

Yates, M V; Yates, S R

Enteric viruses are responsible for a large number of ground-waterborne disease outbreaks every year. Septic tanks are the most frequently cited causes of ground-water contamination in disease outbreaks. Controlling the placement of septic tanks such that all viruses would be non-infective by the time the effluent reached drinking water wells would likely reduce the number of waterborne viral-disease outbreaks. The study compares different geostatistical techniques (kriging, cokriging, and combined kriging and regression) that estimate virus inactivation rates in ground water. These estimates were used with the regional ground-water flow characteristics to estimate septic tank setback distances over a city-wide area. Combined kriging and regression, which eliminates the need for laboratory values of virus inactivation rates by using the linear regression relationship between temperature and inactivation rates, produced comparable results to the other two methods, yet reduced the cost of the analysis considerably.

• Research Organization: Environmental Protection Agency, Ada, OK (USA). Robert S. Kerr Environmental Research Lab.
• OSTI ID: 6841120
• Report Number(s): PB-88-218367/XAB; EPA-600/J-87/353
• Resource Relation: Other Information: Pub. in Water Research, Vol. 21, No. 9, 1119-1125(1987)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
GROUND WATER
WATER POLLUTION
VIRAL DISEASES
VIRUSES
KRIGING
STATISTICS
WATER WELLS
DISEASES
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
INFECTIOUS DISEASES
MATHEMATICS
MICROORGANISMS
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PARASITES
POLLUTION
WATER
WELLS
520200* - Environment
Aquatic- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport- (-1989)
552000 - Public Health