• Technical Procedure for Identifying the Source of Nitrate in Water using Nitrogen and Oxygen Stable Isotope Ratios

  • Kibeum Kim1·Jaeshik Chung1,2*·Seunghak Lee1,2,3*

  • 1Water Cycle Research Center, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Seoul 02792, 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, Korea

  • 질소 및 산소 안정동위원소 활용 수계 질산성 질소 오염원 판별을 위한 기술 절차 제안

  • 김기범1·정재식1,2*·이승학1,2,3*

  • 1한국과학기술연구원(KIST) 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

This study aims to prepare a technical protocol for identifying the source of nitrate in water using nitrogen (δ15N) and oxygen (δ18O) stable isotope ratios. The technical processes for nitrate sources identification are composed of site investigation, sample collection and analysis, isotope analysis, source identification using isotope characteristics, and source apportionment for multiple potential sources with the Bayesian isotope mixing model. Characteristics of various nitrate potential sources are reviewed, and their typical ranges of δ15N and δ18O are comparatively analyzed and summarized. This study also summarizes the current knowledge on the dual-isotope approach and how to correlate the field-relevant information such as land use and hydrochemical data to the nitrate source identification.


Keywords: Nitrate, Source identification, Stable isotope ratio, Technical protocol

This Article

  • 2022; 27(2): 87-98

    Published on Apr 30, 2022

  • 10.7857/JSGE.2022.27.2.087
  • Received on Mar 8, 2022
  • Revised on Mar 27, 2022
  • Accepted on Apr 18, 2022

Correspondence to

  • aeshik Chung 1,2·Seunghak Lee 1,2,3

  • 1Water Cycle Research Center, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Seoul 02792, 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, Korea

  • E-mail: jschung@kist.re.kr, seunglee@kist.re.kr