International cross-validation of a BOD₅ surrogate

BOD₅ dates back to 1912 when the Royal Commission decided to use the mean residence time of water in the rivers of England, 5 days, as a standard to measure the biochemical oxygen demand. Initially designed to protect the quality of river waters from extensive sewage discharge, the use of BOD₅ has been quickly extended to waste water treatment plants (WWTPs) to monitor their efficiency on a daily basis. The measurement has been automatized but remains a tedious, time- and resource-consuming analysis. We have cross-validated a surrogate BOD₅ method on two sites in France and in the USA with a total of 109 samples. This method uses a fluorescent redox indicator on a 96-wellmicroplate to measure microbial catabolic activity for a large number of samples simultaneously. Three statistical tests were used to compare surrogate and reference methods and showed robust equivalence.

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