Sustainable microbial water quality monitoring programme design using phage-lysis and multivariate techniques

► Μultivariate and phage-lysis techniques useful in water quality monitoring design. ► E. coli significantly correlate with intestinal enterococci and turbidity levels. ► Main source of contamination non-human and Bacteroides detect human contamination. ► E. coli, intestinal enterococci, turbidity positively relate to significant PCs. ► Cluster analysis reduces the fourteen sampling sites to five 'sentry' sites.