Factorial Study of Rain Garden Design for Nitrogen Removal
Publication: Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 140, Issue 3
Abstract
Nitrate () removal studies in rain gardens show great variability in removal rates, and in some cases was exported. A three-way factorial design () was devised for eight outdoor unvegetated rain gardens to evaluate the effects of hydraulic loading (two sizes and two flow rates), the presence/absence of a buried wood chip layer (2), and the presence/absence of a subsurface saturated zone (SZ) (2) on nitrate-nitrite () removal. Captured stormwater runoff was used in this study. Results showed that the presence of a SZ reduced the mass by 75% compared to a 7% reduction without this zone. The presence of a SZ significantly decreased ammonia-N () mass reduction (). The difference in total nitrogen (TN) mass reduction with the introduced SZ was not significant, largely due to mass reduction that was offset by mass increases in rain gardens with the SZ. The buried wood chip layer showed no significant effect on N removal. No significant interactions were found between the factors. Overall, the results in this study highlight the importance of incorporating a subsurface SZ for load reduction and demonstrate that a buried wood chip layer as a carbon source did not make a significant contribution to N removal.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The manuscript benefited greatly from the recommendations of anonymous reviewers. The authors thank Dr. Jake Beaulieu (USEPA, Cincinnati) and Maureen Krudner (USEPA, New York) for their review of the draft manuscript. Appreciation is also extended to PARS Environmental for sample collection under EPA Contract EP-C-10-054. This research was conducted at the USEPA’s Urban Watershed Management Branch in Edison, New Jersey, with support funds from the Office of Research and Development, USEPA. The corresponding author wishes to extend much gratitude to the Oak Ridge Institute of Science and Education, Tennessee, for the opportunity to work as a postdoctoral fellow at the research site.
Disclaimer
The USEPA, through its Office of Research and Development, funded and managed, or partially funded and collaborated in, the research described herein. It was subjected to the Agency’s administrative review and approved for external publication. Any opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Agency; therefore, no official endorsement should be inferred. Any mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute endorsement or recommendation for use.
References
Barrett, M. E., Lantin, A., and Austrheim-Smith, S. (2004). “Stormwater pollutant removal in roadside vegetated buffer strips.” Proc., 83rd Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC, 129–140.
Beaulieu, J. J., Arango, C. P., and Tank, J. L. (2009). “The effects of season and agriculture on nitrous oxide production in headwater streams.” J. Environ. Qual., 38(2), 637–646.
Box, G. E., Hunter, W. G., and Hunter, J. S. (1978). Statistics for experimenters: An introduction to design, data analysis, and model building, Wiley, New York.
Bratieres, K., Fletcher, T. D., Deletic, A., and Zinger, Y. (2008). “Nutrient and sediment removal by stormwater biofilters: A large-scale design optimization study.” Water Res., 42(14), 3930–3940.
Brown, R. A., and Hunt, W. F. (2011). “Underdrain configuration to enhance bioretention exfiltration to reduce pollutant loads.” J. Environ. Eng., 1082–1091.
Campbell Scientific. (2006). Instruction manual: CS616 and CS625 Water Content Reflectometers, Logan, Utah, 29–33.
Cohen, J. (1992). “A power primer.” Psychol. Bull., 112(1), 155–159.
Collins, K. A., et al. (2010). “Opportunities and challenges for managing nitrogen in urban stormwater: A review and synthesis.” Ecol. Eng., 36(11), 1507–1519.
Davis, A. P., Hunt, W. F., Traver, R. G., and Clar, M. (2009). “Bioretention technology: Overview of current practice and future needs.” J. Environ. Eng., 109–117.
Davis, A. P., Shokouhian, M., Sharma, H., and Minami, C. (2001). “Laboratory study of biological retention for urban stormwater management.” Water Environ. Res., 73(1), 5–14.
Davis, A. P., Traver, R. G., and Hunt, W. F. (2010). “Improving urban stormwater quality: Applying fundamental principles.” J. Contemp. Water Res. Educ., 146(1), 3–10.
Dietz, M. E., and Clausen, J. C. (2005). “A field evaluation of rain garden flow and pollutant treatment.” Water Air Soil Pollut., 167(1–4), 123–138.
Dietz, M. E., and Clausen, J. C. (2006). “Saturation to improve pollutant retention in a rain garden.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 40(4), 1335–1340.
Elliott, S., Meyer, M. H., Sands, G. R., and Horgan, B. (2011). “Water quality characteristics of three rain gardens located within the twin cities metropolitan area, Minnesota.” Cities and the Environment (CATE), 4(1/4), 1–15.
Hatt, B. E., Fletcher, T. D., and Deletic, A. (2008). “Hydraulic and pollutant removal performance of fine media stormwater filtration systems.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 42(7), 2535–2541.
Hsieh, C. H., and Davis, A. P. (2005). “Evaluation and optimization of bioretention media for treatment of urban storm water runoff.” J. Environ. Eng., 1521–1531.
Jeris, S. J., and Owens, R. W. (1975). “Pilot-scale, high-rate biological denitrification.” J. Water Pollut. Control Fed., 47(8), 2043–2055.
Kim, D., Matsuda, O., and Yamamoto, T. (1997). “Nitrification, denitrification and nitrate reduction rates in the sediment of Hiroshima Bay, Japan.” J. Oceanogr., 53, 317–324.
Kim, H., Seagren, E. A., and Davis, A. P. (2003). “Engineered bioretention for removal of nitrate from stormwater runoff.” Water Environ. Res., 75(4), 355–367.
Koob, T. L., and Barber, M. E. (1999)., National Research Council, Washington, DC.
McClain, M. E., et al. (2003). “Biogeochemical hot spots and hot moments at the interface of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.” Ecosystems, 6(4), 301–312.
Mertler, C. A., and Vannatta, R. A. (2010). Advanced and multivariate statistical methods: Practical application and interpretation, 4th Ed., Pyrczak Publishing, Glendale, CA.
National Research Council (NRC). (2009). Urban stormwater management in the United States, Committee on Reducing Stormwater Discharge Contributions to Water Pollution, National Academies Press, Washington, DC.
O’Connor, T. P. (2010). “Explanation for anomalous readings during monitoring of a best management practice.” J. Irrig. Drain. Eng., 527–531.
Page, K. L., Dalal, R. C., and Menzies, N. W. (2003). “Nitrate ammonification and its relationship to the accumulation of ammonium in a vertisol subsoil.” Aust. J. Soil Res., 41(4), 687–697.
Passeport, E., Hunt, W. F., Line, D. E., Smith, R. A., and Brown, R. A. (2009). “Field study of the ability of two grassed bioretention cells to reduce storm-water runoff pollution.” J. Irrig. Drain. Eng., 505–510.
Pitt, R., Maestre, A., and Morquecho, R. (2004). “The National Stormwater Quality Database (NSQD, version 1.1).” 〈http://unix.eng.ua.edu/∼rpitt/Research/ms4/Paper/Mainms4paper.html〉 (Mar. 13, 2012).
Prince George’s County. (1993). Design manual for use of bioretention in stormwater management, Prince George’s County, MD Dept. of Environmental Protection, Landover, MD.
Sansalone, J. J., and Hird, J. (2003). “Treatment of stormwater runoff from urban pavement and roadways.” Chapter 6, Wet-weather flow in the urban watershed: Technology and management, R. Field and D. Sullivan, eds., CRC Press LLC, Boca Raton, FL, 141–185.
Sansalone, J. J., Hird, J. P., Cartledge, F. K., and Tittlebaum, M. E. (2005). “Event-based stormwater quality and quantity loadings from elevated urban infrastructure affected by transportation.” Water Environ. Res., 77(4), 348–365.
Schipper, L. A., Robertson, W. D., Gold, A. J., Jaynes, D. B., and Cameron, S. C. (2010). “Denitrifying bioreactors—An approach for reducing nitrate loads to receiving waters.” Ecol. Eng., 36(11), 1532–1543.
Tabachnick, B. G., and Fidell, L. S. (2007). Using multivariate statistics, 5th Ed., Allyn & Bacon, Boston.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). (1983)., Water Planning Division, Washington, DC.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). (2000)., Washington, DC.
Zinger, Y., Fletcher, T. D., Deletic, A., Blecken, G. T., and Viklander, M. (2007). Optimisation of the nitrogen retention capacity of stormwater biofiltration systems, Novatech 2007, 6th Int. Conf. on Sustainable Techniques and Strategies in Urban Water Management, Lyon, France.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 140 • Issue 3 • March 2014
Copyright
© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 15, 2012
Accepted: Oct 22, 2013
Published online: Dec 12, 2013
Published in print: Mar 1, 2014
Discussion open until: May 12, 2014
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.