Resumen
Detection of enzymatic activities has been proposed as a rapid surrogate for the culture-based microbiological pollution monitoring of water resources. This paper presents the results of tests on four fully automated prototype instruments for the on-site monitoring of beta-d-glucuronidase (GLUC) activity. The tests were performed on sediment-laden stream water in the Hydrological Open Air Laboratory (HOAL) during the period of March 2014 to March 2015. The dominant source of faecal pollution in the stream was swine manure applied to the fields within the catchment. The experiments indicated that instrument pairs with the same construction design yielded highly consistent results (R2 = 0.96 and R2 = 0.94), whereas the results between different designs were less consistent (R2 = 0.71). Correlations between the GLUC activity measured on-site and culture-based Escherichia coli analyses over the entire study period yielded R2 = 0.52 and R2 = 0.47 for the two designs, respectively. The correlations tended to be higher at the event scale. The GLUC activity was less correlated with suspended sediment concentrations than with E. coli, which is interpreted in terms of indicator applicability and the time since manure application. The study shows that this rapid assay can yield consistent results over a long period of on-site operation in technically challenging habitats. Although the use of GLUC activity as a proxy for culture-based assays could not be proven for the observed habitat, the study results suggest that this biochemical indicator has high potential for implementation in early warning systems.