The authors regret to inform the readers that T90 values presented in the article were not correct. TheT90 values initially reported were calculated using an incorrect equation in section 2.5 (data analysis). However, the correct equation is T90 = 1/k. Therefore, T90 values presented in Tables 2 and 3, and throughout the text in results and discussion sections are incorrect. T90 values stated in the article are approximately 2.3 times higher than the correct values. The correct values are provided in the text and Tables 2 and 3 (see below). These Incorrect T90 values do not affect the conclusions made in the article. In the sentence “statistical findings were considered significant at an α level of 0.5.”, the value of α level is 0.05. 3.4 Decay rates of qPCR FIB and sewage-associated markers. In the result section paragraph 3, section 3.4 starting with “According to the first order decay model” has been changed to: According to the first order decay model, ENT in sediment samples from BI (k = 0.03; T90 = 37.8 days) and LS (k = 0.08; T90 = 12.9 days) mesocosms exhibited slow decay rates (Table 2). The HF183 marker gene in water and sediment samples from all three mesocosms followed a first order decay. The decay of HF183 was faster (k = 0.97 to 1.01; T90 = 1.00–1.03 days) in water samples compared to sediment (k = 0.49–0.09; T90 = 2.04–11.3 days). The decay of HF183 in water from all mesocosms was significantly different from sediment (p < 0.05) according to the Fisher's LSD test (Fig. 2). The decay rates of HAdV in water samples from all three microcosms ranged from 0.24 to 0.58 (T90 = 4.09 to 1.72 days). The decay rate of HAdV in sediment was significantly slower (p < 0.05) than in water from the NB mesocosm. The decay rates of HPyV in water were similar to those of HAdV, ranging from 0.26 to 0.42 (T90 = 3.88 to 2.40 days). The decay of HPyV was significantly (p < 0.05) slower in NB sediment samples than in water. Although the HPyV decay was slightly faster in LS sediment compared to water, the difference was not statistically significant (p > 0.05). The decay rates of crAssphage in water samples from both BI and LS mesocosms were similar to HAdV and HPyV, ranging from 0.30 to 0.33 (T90 = 3.36 to 3.00 days). However, the crAssphage decay rate in sediment was much slower than that seen in water, ranging from 0.05 to 0.03 (T90 = 19.6–39.3 days). The decay of HF183 in water from both BI and LS mesocosms was significantly different (p < 0.05) from sediment. According to the biphasic decay model, EC exhibited a faster decay rate in water during the first phase (k1 = 0.33 to 0.67; T90 = 3.03 to 1.50 days) in all three mesocosms compared to sediment (k1 = 0.23 to 0.29; T90 = 4.28 to 3.50 days) (Table 3). The differences were significant (p < 0.05) for the BI and LS mesocosms, but not for the NB mesocosm (p > 0.05). The first phase of the biphasic decay of ENT (k1 = 0.72 to 1.19; T90 = 1.38 to 0.84 days) and crAssphage (k1 = 0.38; T90 = 2.63 days) in water were similar to first order decay of HF183 (k = 0.97 to 1.01; T90 = 1.03 to 1.00 days), HAdV (k = 0.24 to 0.58; T90 = 4.09 to 1.72 days) and HPyV (k = 0.26 to 0.42; T90 = 3.88 to 2.40 days), respectively.