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AEROBIC DENITRIFICATION: IMPLICATIONS FOR NITROGEN FATE MODELING
Citation:
THOMAS, R., J. W. WASHINGTON, AND L. SAMARKINA. AEROBIC DENITRIFICATION: IMPLICATIONS FOR NITROGEN FATE MODELING. Presented at Mississippi River Basin Nutrients Science Workshop, St. Louis, MO, October 04 - 06, 2005.
Impact/Purpose:
Improve the scientific understanding of the processes controlling nutrient distributions in surface waters. Produce a suite of enhanced models for characterizing nutrient distributions in surface waters by incorporating improved process understanding in existing models (e.g., WASP), by developing new models (e.g., WHAM, reactive transport), and improving linkages between model components.
Description:
In the Mississippi, as well as most nitrogen-degraded rivers and streams, NO3- is the dominant N species and therefore understanding its biogeochemical behavior is critical for accurate nitrogen fate modeling. To our knowledge this is the first work to report aerobic denitrification under conditions typically found in environmental settings, such as the Mississippi River Basin. Our discovery of aerobic denitrification is expected to have a high impact on N-fate modeling as most existing models call for denitrification to take place in anoxic settings, yet most impacted surface waters are aerobic.