Cultivation-based methods are the standard for microbiological water quality analysis today, but they don't tell the whole story. New methods, including cultivation-independent and molecular biological analysis, have opened up many previously unsolvable topics in microbiological water analysis. The SARA project used methods such as microbial source tracking and next-generation sequencing extensively, clearly demonstrating the added value of these methods. The studies showed that the combination of methods such as culture detection of antibiotic resistant bacteria, PCR-based detection and metagenomic analysis for antibiotic resistance genes gives a much more complete picture of the antibiotic resistance situation and provides important information for risk assessment. In addition, the SARA results support the monitoring of crAssphage by qPCR as the primary microbial source tracking marker for the identification of human faecal contamination due to its superior reliability and higher concentrations and prevalence in all samples. These and other key findings from the project have been summarised in a policy brief, which is publicly available (www.sara-project.info).

A close collaboration between water management, practice-orientated institutes and university research is imperative in order to leverage the full potential offered by novel analytical methods. In order to disseminate the positive experiences with molecular biology methods, a workshop on innovative methods in microbiology will be held at the TZW in Karlsruhe on 2 April 2025. This workshop will bring together German stakeholders for an in-depth exchange. Experts from science and practice will report on their fields of work. The topics include the use of molecular biological methods for the detection of viruses, bacteria and antibiotic resistance, the identification of faecal contamination sources, the areas of application of next-generation sequencing methods, the advantages of bacterial identification using MALDI-TOF-MS and the current status of online methods for water monitoring. If you are interested in the workshop, please visit www.tzw.de/veranstaltungen for the programme, flyer and registration form.