Source identification in rural catchments

This PhD aims to determine faecal pollution sources and explore the uncertainties of source identification in rural catchments. Specifically, the focus is on the use of microbial community fingerprinting as the source apportionment method. Overall, this PhD can aid catchment managers in: (1) designing efficient riparian buffers for managing faecal pollution in rural waterways; (2) understanding how many faecal source samples and the age profile of source samples to collect for microbial community fingerprinting analysis; (3) recognising the animals that contribute faecal pollution to rural catchments; and (4) highlighting the importance of conducting cross-validation on microbial community fingerprinting.