To protect surface and groundwater resources from enteric bacterial pollution, management practices must be devised based on a sound knowledge of the fate of these organisms in the environment. Areas covered in this article include the effects of physical and chemical characteristics of the environment, mathematical modeling approaches of bacterial die-off and a summary of past investigations of bacterial die-off in storage systems, soil and fresh/sea water environments. The greatest need for future research efforts was shown to be in determination of the relationships of environmental and physical parameters to bacterial survival so that the literature data could be unified.