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PROCESS TRANSFER FUNCTIONS TO RELATE STREAM ECOLOGICAL CONDITION METRICS TO NITRATE RETENTION
Citation:
FAULKNER, B. R. PROCESS TRANSFER FUNCTIONS TO RELATE STREAM ECOLOGICAL CONDITION METRICS TO NITRATE RETENTION. In Proceedings, ASABE Annual International Meeting, Portland, OR, July 09 - 12, 2006. AMERICAN SOCIETY OF AGRICULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERS, ST. JOSEPH, MI, Paper# 062178, (2006).
Impact/Purpose:
To observe hydrological metrics developed by ecologist to characterize the nutrient processing capability of streams.
Description:
Ecologists have developed hydrological metrics to characterize the nutrient processing capability of streams. In most cases these are used qualitatively to draw inferences on ecological function. In this work, several of these metrics have been integrated in a nonsteady state advection-dispersion equation coupled with reactions among various compartments of the stream system. These include characteristic dead zone and hyporheic residence time distributions, nutrient uptake length, and denitrification rate. With the assumption of linear kinetics, this system was solved in the Laplace domain to yield transfer functions that describe total nitrate retention by moment analysis. The approach can be generalized as a cascade of linear reservoirs for screening level evaluation of stream heterogeneity. This approach yields attenuation factors for stream reaches of interest which can be useful for restoration planning and cost benefit analysis.
