HR: 1340h
AN: B43C-0294    [Abstracts]
TI: The Role of Stormwater Detention Ponds in Nitrogen Cycling in Urban Watersheds
AU: * Rosenzweig, B R
EM: brosenzw@princeton.edu
AF: Princeton University, CEE Dept, Engineering Quad, Princeton University, Olden St. and Prospect St., Princeton, NJ 08540 United States
AU: Jaffe, P R
EM: jaffe@princeton.edu
AF: Princeton University, CEE Dept, Engineering Quad, Princeton University, Olden St. and Prospect St., Princeton, NJ 08540 United States
AB: Stormwater detention ponds may serve as important control points for the cycling of nitrogen in urban watersheds. They may function as landscape scale "sinks" for nitrogen by providing the retention time and biogeochemical conditions needed for nitrogen removal mechanisms, such as denitrification, to be significant. They may also function as landscape-scale "sources" of mobile nitrogen, since the soils of many detention ponds will undergo augmented cycles of wetting and drying. During dry periods, significant quantities of bound nitrogen may be transformed into highly mobile nitrate, which may subsequently be flushed out during the next wetting event. We expect that the actual function of detention ponds in nitrogen cycling will vary temporally as well as with the design, age and maintenance of the pond. We are conducting field monitoring in the Harry's Brook Watershed in Princeton, New Jersey, a small urban/suburban drainage basin that possesses several large detention ponds. Our results to date have shown a flush of nitrate following rainstorm events, even in stream reaches that are controlled by detention ponds. We plan to use the data we collect from our fieldwork in numerical models to better understand the key nitrogen cycling processes.
UR: http://cee.princeton.edu/eewr/hydromet/HBEL/HBELNcycling.html
DE: 0469 Nitrogen cycling
DE: 0470 Nutrients and nutrient cycling (4845, 4850)
DE: 0493 Urban systems
DE: 0496 Water quality
SC: Biogeosciences [B]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005