ABSTRACT
Standardisation of sampling methods in the future, considering the relevant species, the limits of detection and other parameters will be helpful in assessing microbial proliferation on different surfaces and in addressing public health risks after floods. An effective overall model or combination of models would describe and ultimately predict the fate of the indicator organisms and their potential dispersion in urban environments leading to public health risks taking into account the inactivation of pathogens on specific tested surfaces. Under laboratory controlled conditions it became evident that inactivation of faecal indicators E. coli in waters was linearly proportional to light intensity and duration of exposure to light. The novelty of this thesis was the study of the inactivation of surrogate organisms for bacterial and viral contamination and parasite oocysts after urban floods, for which the scientific literature is very limited.
