ch. 1. Introduction -- ch. 2. Effects of surface characteristics on the transport of multiple escherichia coli isolates in large scale columns of quartz sand -- ch. 3. Towards understanding inter-strain attachment variations of escherichia coli during transport in saturated quartz sand -- ch. 4. Determining the minimum sticking efficiency of six environmental escherichia coli isolates -- ch. 5. Transport of escherichia coli in 25 m columns -- ch. 6. Transport of escherichia coli strains isolated from spring water -- ch. 7. Transport of escherichia coli strains isolated from springs in Kampala, Uganda -- ch. 8 Summary, conclusions and recommendations.