This webpage will be used to highlight recent developments of importance to source tracking. At present there are two "News Items and Hot Topics" of note.

On February 5-7, 2002, the Southern California Coastal Water Rresearch Project (SCCWRP), in cooperation with the US Environmental Protection Agency, CA State Water Quality Control Board, and the National Water Research Institute, hosted the first national workshop on microbiological source tracking techniques. Counting different organisms, some 16 methods (phenotypic, genotypic, library-dependent, non-library dependent) were described that appear to have potential in source tracking.

Workshop participants were enthusiastic about the rapid advances in source tracking techniques that had been made in the last several years. They also felt that many of the techniques presented at the workshop would fare well in the comparison tests and such tests would dramatically improve the rigor of microbial source tracking methods. There was recognition, though, that because of the diversity of animal types, as well as intrinsic evolutionary processes in microbial organisms, these methods will never be 100% accurate. The challenge for practitioners is to recognize that there will always be some patterns that cannot be classified and to determine the point at which increased effort devoted to refining methods and building libraries begins to produce diminishing returns. The first link (below) to the SCCWRP webpage will provide access to the abstracts of all presentations and the summary and conclusions developed from the workshop.

The second link below is to an editorial article in Science Magazine on bacterial source tracking (Volume 295, Number 5564, Issue of 29 Mar 2002, pp. 2352-2353). The Science article does bring out in the open some of the issues relating to method controversies that should be of interest to the entire source tracking community.

SCCWRP

Science Magazine Article