Nitrogen removal capacity of wetlands: sediment versus epiphytic biofilms.

Wetlands are important sinks for nutrients and constructed wetlands are current practice for stormwater treatment. For nitrogen, the main removal process is denitrification (microbial reduction of nitrate to nitrogen gas). The bacteria responsible for this process are mostly found in the sediments and in epiphytic biofilms growing on wetland macrophytes. This paper reports on a project which aimed at measuring denitrification potential in sediments and epiphyton in urban wetlands. This study showed that wetland sediments could support high rates of denitrification. Interestingly, the most polluted of the wetlands studied had the highest denitrification potential. The management implication from this result is that indicators of pollution, such as hydrocarbon levels, will not necessarily reflect the ability of a wetland to denitrify. Two of the wetlands were studied in more detail. Here the denitrification potential of the epiphyton on dominant macrophytes and sediments were measured. The results indicated that the potential denitrification activity of the epiphyton was comparable to those measured in the sediments. Hence, biofilms could play a significant part in removing nitrogen loads. This work contributes to a better knowledge of the functioning of wetlands. This will lead to improved design and management of wetlands used for treating stormwater.

Application of the Australian river bioassessment system (AUSRIVAS) in the Brantas River, East Java, Indonesia.

Assessment of river 'health' using biological methods, particularly those based on macro-invertebrates, is now commonplace in most developed countries. However, this is not the case in most developing countries, where physical and chemical methods are used to assess water quality, with very little use of biological assessment methods. This paper reports on a project that aimed to assess the possible introduction of biological assessment of river condition using the Australian River Assessment System (AUSRIVAS) into Indonesia. The paper addresses three components of the project: (1) science--does the bioassessment method work in this tropical region? (2) resources--are they adequate and if not what additional resources are needed? (3) politics--what needs to be done to convince the agencies (both central and provincial) to take up such a new philosophy and approach? A pilot study was run in the upper Brantas River, East Java. A total of 66 reference sites and 15 test sites were sampled and the macro-invertebrates collected were identified to family level. A rigorous quality-control protocol was introduced to ensure the data were reliable and reproducible. The macro-invertebrate data were used to develop a predictive model of the AUSRIVAS type for the upper Brantas River, and the model was then used to assess the 'health' of sites that were presumed to be damaged in this section of the river. A number of difficulties were experienced during the study, including: locating reference sites sufficiently unmodified by humans; lack of skills to identify animals collected; and a paucity of facilities required for aquatic macro-invertebrate identification (e.g. identification keys and good quality binocular microscopes). For resources, the major constraint to the introduction of a bioassessment capability in Indonesia is the lack of personnel trained in the bioassessment techniques. An 'on-the-job' training approach was adopted, largely because of the specialist nature of this work. Six Indonesians were trained and will now become the 'trainers' of further Indonesian scientists (we have called this process 'training-the-trainers'). For politics, it was hoped that the AUSRIVAS method would be suitable for introduction into the Indonesian national Clean River Program. A strategy was developed and implemented to ensure the method and its outputs were accepted technically by the Indonesian scientific community, and also by the resource managers and relevant government officials. Experience shows that if the latter do not see how the bioassessment information will be used for management purposes they will not accept the method even if it is scientifically sound.

Hydrolysis of triphosphate from detergents in a rural waste water system.

The concentrations of detergent phosphates in raw sewage entering a small, predominantly domestic waste water treatment facility were determined using an ion chromatographic-flow injection analysis technique. Hourly loads of detergent phosphates were measured between 0600 and 2300 hrs (the major flow period in the plant) on days of both low and high phosphorus loads. The calculated loads of detergent phosphorus entering the plant on low and high load days were 260 g P/day and 350 g P/day, respectively. The half-life of detergent phosphates (triphosphate) in waste waters was measured to be 7.3 hours at 15 degrees C and 3.0 h at 20 degrees C. The major factor contributing to triphosphate degradation in waste water was shown to be biological in nature, with the most likely mechanism being enzymatic hydrolysis.

Fractionation and composition of colloidal and suspended particulate materials in rivers.

The association of pollutants (nutrients, heavy metals and organic compounds) with colloidal and suspended particle matter (SPM) plays a dominant role in determining their transport, fate, biogeochemistry, bioavailability and toxicity in natural waters. A scheme for the fractionation and composition of colloidal and SPM from river waters has been tested. All four separation methods, i.e. sieving, continuous flow centrifugation, tangential flow filtration, sedimentation field-flow fractionation, were for the first time used to separate five size particulate fractions from river. Significant (gram) amounts of colloidal material (<1 microm) in three size ranges, nominally 1-0.2, 0.2-0.006 and 0.006-0.003 microm were obtained. The separation scheme was able to process large samples (100 l), within reasonable times (1 day) and the apparatus was portable. The aquatic colloid size was also characterized with high resolution by using sedimentation field-flow fractionation technique. The mass-based particle size distribution for the water sample showed a broad size distribution between 0.05 and 0.4 microm with the maximum around 0.14 microm. There was a systematic increase in the content of organic carbon (estimated by loss on ignition), Mg, Ca, Na, Cu and Zn with decreasing particle size, highlighting the importance of the colloidal (<1 microm) fraction. It was concluded that the colloidal Cu and Zn concentrations in rivers might be much higher than those reported before.

Speciation of dissolved phosphorus in environmental samples by gel filtration and flow-injection analysis.

A study of the factors affecting separation and detection of dissolved organic and inorganic phosphorus species found in waters sediments is reported. The system involved the use of gel filtration and flow injection analysis (FIA). Orthophosphate and myo-inositol hexakisphosphate, as model solutes representative of low molecular weight P (LMWP) and high molecular weight P (HMWP), were separated on a Sephadex G25 column incorporated into a flow-injection manifold which utilized photo-oxidation and spectrophotometry for detection of dissolved reactive phosphorus (DRP) and dissolved organic phosphorus (DOP). The influence of eluent pH and ionic strength on adsorption and anionic exclusion of the model solutes is described, and the optimum eluent composition and sample size are described. The method was used to determine LMWP and HMWP in natural and waste waters, and in sediment extracts. Potential limitations of this approach are discussed.

Characterization of immobilized Escherichia coli alkaline phosphatase reactors in flow injection analysis.

The characterization of immobilized Escherichia coli alkaline phosphatase reactors used in flow injection analysis is reported for factors such as optimum pH, activity, ionic strength, product inhibition, and substrate specificity. The kinetics of the immobilized enzyme was studied, and mathematical descriptions were developed for the use of an immobilized enzyme packed-bed reactor to evaluate the kinetic parameters and the number of active sites on the immobilized enzyme. Suppression of phosphatase activity by orthophosphate was found to be significantly reduced, and the Michaelis-Menten constant increased when the enzyme was immobilized and packed in a reactor. Immobilized E. coli alkaline phosphatase exhibited similar activity at pH 8 in Tris-HCl, NaHCO3 and borate-HCl buffers but slightly lower activity in NH3H2O-NH4Ac buffer. The performance of the immobilized enzyme reactor was not affected by the presence of up to 10 M Mg(II), Ni(II), Cd(II), Co(II), Mn(II), Cu(II), or urea, 1 M Fe(II), or 0.1 M Fe(III) in the substrate stream. The chelating agent EDTA, however, gradually deactivated the immobilized enzyme. The periodic restoration of enzyme activity was achieved following the removal and addition of zinc ions. The immobilized E. coli alkaline phosphatase packed-bed reactor was used to measure the alkaline phosphatase available phosphorus content of a number of model organophosphorus compounds. p-Nitrophenyl phosphate showed a linear response in the range of 1.6 x 10(-7)-1.6 x 10(-4) M. This study forms part of a larger program to develop enzymatic systems for water quality measurement.