• Determination of Site-specific Denitrification Rate for Nitrate Reactive Transport Modeling in Groundwater

  • Sang Hyun Kim1·Jaeshik Chung1,2*·Seunghak Lee1,2,3*

  • 1Water Cycle Research Center, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Seoul 02792, Republic of Korea
    2Division of Energy and Environmental Technology, KIST School, Korea University of Science and Technology (UST), Seoul 02792, Republic of Korea
    3Graduate School of Energy and Environment (KU-KIST Green School), Seoul 20841, Republic of Korea

  • 지하수 내 질산성 질소 반응-이동 모델링을 위한 부지특이적 탈질화 계수 선정 방안에 대한 고찰

  • 김상현1·정재식1,2*·이승학1,2,3*

  • 1한국과학기술연구원 물자원순환연구단
    2과학기술연합대학원대학교(UST) 에너지-환경융합전공
    3고려대학교 에너지환경대학원

  • This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

A simple and efficient scheme is presented that attempts to implement the site-specific denitrification rate in the reactive transport modeling for the nitrate in groundwater. A series of correlation analyses were conducted using 133 datasets obtained from different nitrate-contaminated sites to find the empirical relationships between denitrification rates and various subsurface properties. Based on Pearson’s correlation analysis, the soil organic carbon concentrations showed a statistically significant correlation (r = 0.75, p < 0.05) with the denitrification rates. A linear regression was performed, which could be utilized to effectively determine the site-specific denitrification rate based on the soil organic carbon concentration of a site. The proposed method is expected to effectively replace the conventional methods which either were too complicated for practical application or impose large uncertainties that might end up with unreliable results.


Keywords: Groundwater; nitrate; reactive-transport modeling; site-specific denitrification rate; soil organic carbon

This Article

  • 2021; 26(6): 74-81

    Published on Dec 31, 2021

  • 10.7857/JSGE.2021.26.6.074
  • Received on Nov 24, 2021
  • Revised on Nov 30, 2021
  • Accepted on Dec 13, 2021

Correspondence to

  • Seunghak Lee

  • 1Water Cycle Research Center, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Seoul 02792, Republic of Korea
    2Division of Energy and Environmental Technology, KIST School, Korea University of Science and Technology (UST), Seoul 02792, Republic of Korea
    3Graduate School of Energy and Environment (KU-KIST Green School), Seoul 20841, Republic of Korea

  • E-mail: jschung@kist.re.kr