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TECHNICAL REPORTS

Surface Water Quality

Transport and Metabolic Fate of Sewage Particles in a Recipient Stream

^a Dep. of Freshwater Ecology, Vienna Ecology Center, Univ. of Vienna, A-1090 Vienna, Austria
^b Dep. of Freshwater Ecology, Vienna Ecology Center, Univ. of Vienna, A-1090 Vienna, Austria, and Dep. of Ecology, Univ. of Barcelona, 08082 Barcelona, Spain

^* Corresponding author (tomba{at}pflaphy.pph.univie.ac.at)

Received for publication July 30, 2004. Although the implementation of wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) has dramatically increased the quality of surface waters in urbanized areas, WWTPs can still discharge noticeable amounts of solutes and particles to recipient streams. Although the fate of WWTP nutrients has received considerable attention, transport and in-stream transformation of sewage-derived particulate organic matter (SDPOM) have not. To investigate the transport and transformation of SDPOM in recipient streams, we experimentally injected fluorescently labeled SDPOM into a headwater stream and tracked its downstream fate at baseflow. Most SDPOM disappeared from the streamwater within a 160-m long reach with an average deposition velocity of 0.14 mm s^–1. We further coupled hydrometric measurements of specific water fluxes through the streambed interface with a mixing model to estimate streambed oxygen removal, and found significantly higher oxygen removal in the deposition (0.75 g O₂ m^–2 d^–1) than in the downstream post-deposition (0.36 g O₂ m^–2 d^–1) subreach. Contrary to our expectations, we did not detect any apparent effect of SDPOM deposition on streambed clogging. Our results show the capacity of a recipient stream to retain SDPOM and to reduce its downstream export, and thus contribute to a better understanding of ecosystem services of human-altered streams.

Abbreviations: ANOVA, analysis of variance • DO, dissolved oxygen • DTAF, 5-(4,6-dichlorotriazinyl) amino-fluorescein • EMMA, end-member mixing analysis • FITC, fluoresceine isothiocyanate • FPOM, fine particulate organic matter • SDPOM, sewage-derived particulate organic matter • VHG, vertical hydraulic gradient • WWTP, wastewater treatment plant

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JEQ 2005 34: v. [Full Text]