Faecal contamination over flood events in a pastoral agricultural stream in New Zealand

Faecal bacterial dynamics during flood events were studied in the Topehaehae Stream near Morrinsville, New Zealand, in a catchment used for grazing dairy and beef cattle. During the rising limb of a natural flood event, E. coli bacterial concentration rose by more than 2 orders of magnitude and peaked at 41,000 cfu/100 mL. E. coli correlated closely with turbidity over the flood event, and both variables peaked close to the time of maximum flow acceleration rather than peak flow. An artificial flood on the same stream, created by releasing water from a supply reservoir during fine weather with no wash-in from the catchment, produced a broadly similar pattern of faecal contamination (peak E. coli = 12,500 cfu/100 mL). This and other evidence suggests that direct deposition of faecal matter by cattle in the stream channel may be of similar or greater importance than wash-in from land. The flood experiments have been useful for constructing a model of faecal bacterial yields, and they imply that exclusion of livestock from stream channels may appreciably improve water quality.