Groundwater bacterioplankton, fluorescent organic matter and nutrient concentration of three major aquifers in England, September-October 2022 and January-February 2023
Bhattacharyya, A., Nicholls, D. (2025). Groundwater bacterioplankton, fluorescent organic matter and nutrient concentration of three major aquifers in England, September-October 2022 and January-February 2023. NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/b27ce2ee-89ee-428d-bcd5-4abd97141d62
This dataset contains information about planktonic bacterial quantity at the drinking water pumping stations installed in three different aquifer types of England. The aim of data collection was to assess spatial and seasonal variation of groundwater bacterioplankton distribution and their dependence on organic matter, nutrient concentration and local hydrogeology. Untreated groundwater samples were collected from the intergranular sandstone aquifer of English Midlands and East Midlands, the dual porosity chalk aquifer of South East England and the karstic limestone aquifer of the Cotswolds. For temporal variation in each aquifer, the same aquifers were sampled during pre-recharge season in September-October 2022 and post-recharge season in January-February 2023.
Groundwater bacterioplankton concentration distribution in drinking water sources are poorly characterised. Therefore we collected groundwater samples form drinking water pumping stations installed in Permo-Triassic sandstone aquifer of English Midlands and East Midlands, Cretaceous Chalk aquifer of South-East England and Jurassic Limestone aquifer of Cotswold, each with distinct aquifer properties. From the intergranular sandstone, dual porosity chalk, and karstic limestone aquifers 29 , 32 , and 8 sites respectively were sampled in the pre-recharge and 34, 33, and 8 sites respectively were sampled in the peak-recharge seasons. The bacterioplankton total cell concentration (TCC), high nucleic acid cell percentage (%HNA) and intact bacterial cell percentage (%ICC) were measured used Attune Cytpix Flow Cytometer. The data was collected in triplicate, filtered noisy data by manual inspection, and the current data contains average values from the triplicate and standard deviations of the replicated. Fluorescence organic matter (fOM) loading and fluorescence indices were measured using an Aqualog® fluorimeter (Horiba Scientific, Japan). Raw data was processed and PARAFAC analysis was performed using R package staRdom to find the fOM loading values. Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and total dissolved nitrogen (TDN) concentrations were measured on filtered groundwater samples using an Elementar Vario Cube (Elementar Ananlysensysteme GmbH; Langenselbold, Germany). Borehole depth, perforation depth, were assessed using BGS borehole logs. Confinement and surface water vulnerability interpretations were provided by respective water companies.
NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre