Bacterial communities in an intermittent piped water supply in Arraiján, Panama

Intermittent water supply (IWS) is a common practice in low- and middle-income countries around the world, and has been shown to degrade water quality. In this study, we characterized water quality and bacterial communities in a section of the drinking water distribution network in Arraiján, Panama with IWS, in which service alternated between several days with and without supply. We sampled at two locations in this zone, one near the entrance to the IWS zone (with continuous supply) and one at a downstream location (with IWS). 16S rDNA amplicon sequencing was used to characterize bacterial communities in the bulk water.