Bile acids combined with fecal sterols: a multiple biomarker approach for deciphering fecal pollution using river sediments

Purpose Fecal sterols (FSs) and bile acids (BAs) are biomarkers that can be used to track sewage pollution. These biomarkers offer an alternative to microbiological analyses, which have several weaknesses, including a lack of specificity. FSs are recognized fecal biomarkers, but there are very few studies showing the use of BAs as a fecal tracer, especially in river sediments, to the best of our knowledge. Thus, the aim of this work was to determine the response of BAs as an alternative biomarker of fecal pollution in parallel to FSs in freshwater sediments and use both biomarker groups to decipher the potential fecal pollution sources in a subtropical river.