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Sediment Pore Water Ammonium Concentrations in Old Tampa Bay as Determined by the Diffusive Equilibration in Thin Films (DET) Technique
Citation:
Burke, R., R. McKinley, M. Parsons, K. McNeal, AND J. Martin. Sediment Pore Water Ammonium Concentrations in Old Tampa Bay as Determined by the Diffusive Equilibration in Thin Films (DET) Technique. Presented at 2014 Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Portland, OR, May 18 - 23, 2014.
Impact/Purpose:
Presented at the 2014 Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting in Portland, OR, May 18-23, 2014.
Description:
Increased nitrogen loading, associated with rapid human population growth, was thought to be a major driver of Tampa Bay water quality degradation in the decades immediately after the Second World War. Improvements in wastewater treatment in the early 1980s led to marked reductions in nitrogen loading and improved water quality throughout the bay, except within the Old Tampa Bay (OTB) segment. Better capabilities to estimate and predict sediment nutrient cycling and fluxes are needed to evaluate the potential impacts of proposed management activities on OTB water quality. To support this effort, pore water ammonium concentrations were evaluated with fourteen sediment probes employing the diffusive-equilibration-in-thin films (DET) technique that were deployed by divers at seven sites scattered throughout OTB during July 2012. Observed pore water ammonium concentrations ranged from 0.1 to 12.1 mg N/L, which is within the range of pore water ammonium concentrations observed in other estuarine and nearshore marine systems. These data should aid in setting sediment diagenesis model initial conditions and/or evaluating model predictions of pore water ammonium concentrations and also provide a means of estimating sediment-water ammonium exchange.
