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TECHNICAL REPORTS
Wetlands and Aquatic Processes

Nutrient and Sediment Removal by a Restored Wetland Receiving Agricultural Runoff

^a Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, P.O. Box 28, Edgewater, MD 21037
^b Duke Univ. Dep. of Biology, Durham, NC 27708
^c Univ. of Maryland, Dep. of Biological Resources Engineering, College Park, MD 20742

^* Corresponding author (jordanth{at}si.edu)

Few studies have measured removal of pollutants by restored wetlands that receive highly variable inflows. We used automated flow-proportional sampling to monitor the removal of nutrients and suspended solids by a 1.3-ha restored wetland receiving unregulated inflows from a 14-ha agricultural watershed in Maryland, USA. Water entered the wetland mainly in brief pulses of runoff, which sometimes exceeded the 2500-m³ water holding capacity of the wetland. Half of the total water inflow occurred in only 24 days scattered throughout the two-year study. Measured annual water gains were within 5% of balancing water losses. Annual removal of nutrients differed greatly between the two years of the study. The most removal occurred in the first year, which included a three-month period of decreasing water level in the wetland. In that year, the wetland removed 59% of the total P, 38% of the total N, and 41% of the total organic C it received. However, in the second year, which lacked a drying period, there was no significant (p > 0.05) net removal of total N or P, although 30% of the total organic C input was removed. For the entire two-year period, the wetland removed 25% of the ammonium, 52% of the nitrate, and 34% of the organic C it received, but there was no significant net removal of total suspended solids (TSS) or other forms of N and P. Although the variability of inflow may have decreased the capacity of the wetland to remove materials, the wetland still reduced nonpoint-source pollution.

Abbreviations: TN, total nitrogen • TNH⁺₄, total ammonium • TOC, total organic carbon • TON, total organic nitrogen • TOP, total organic phosphorus • TPO^3-₄, total phosphate • TSS, total suspended solids

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