Modeling Escherichia Coli and Its Sources in an Urban Bayou with Hydrologic Simulation Program—FORTRAN
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 137, Issue 6
Abstract
Bacterial levels in Buffalo Bayou in Houston commonly exceed contact recreation standards. Potential sources of bacteria include wastewater treatment plants, sanitary sewer overflows, septic systems, wet and dry nonpoint-source discharges via direct runoff and pipes, direct deposition, and sediment. A water-quality model in the Hydrologic Simulation Program—FORTRAN (HSPF) was calibrated and validated for hydrology, sediment, and Escherichia coli and subsequently used to evaluate the impacts of the bacterial sources in the watershed. In addition, simple estimates of bacterial loads were calculated along with source evaluations from load duration curves. Load reductions based upon the simple estimates indicated that water-quality standards were met by reducing dry-weather indicator bacterial loads by 69% and wet-weather loads by 98%. When these load reductions were implemented in the HSPF model, however, standards were not met under dry-weather conditions. Residual nonpoint-source loading was found to cause the discrepancy between simple load estimate calculations and the developed water-quality model. This paper demonstrates that runoff can play a significant role in maintaining high levels of bacteria under all flow conditions and that understanding the temporal variations in bacterial source loading is critical to ensure that load reductions will achieve water-quality standards.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The writers gratefully acknowledge the feedback provided on the manuscript by two anonymous reviewers.
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Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 137 • Issue 6 • June 2011
Pages: 487 - 503
Copyright
© 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 11, 2008
Accepted: Dec 20, 2010
Published online: Dec 23, 2010
Published in print: Jun 1, 2011
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