Nitrogen transport and transformation in the Aberjona watershed

The Aberjona watershed has been subject to contamination by dense urbanization and industrial effluent. A large amount of nitrogen loading to watersheds nation-widely comes from agricultural areas, but the Aberjona watershed has a considerable nitrogen inflow from .an industrial area. The nitrogen compounds in the Aberjona watershed might be delivered to the estuary near Boston, and could cause damage to the ocean environment. With these concerns in mind, the Aberjona watershed research team measured three kinds of nitrogen compounds and evaluated nitrogen characteristics in different regions. Enormous amount of ammonium has leached to the Aberjona River, one of the tributaries, as the river passes by an industrial area and two superfund sites. Horn Pond Creek, another tributary, has a low level of ammonium and nitrate flux, and dilutes the high concentration of ammonium from the Aberjona River before the creek arrives at the USGS site. In the Aberjona River, nitrification, which is an oxidization reaction from NH4+ to NO3 -, would be expected due to a high concentration of ammonium. In the Horn Pond Creek, denitrification, which is reduction reaction from NO3- to N2 , seems to take place between Horn Pond and Wedge Pond. As for organic nitrogen, it comprises around 15 %-30% of total nitrogen through the watershed.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2003

Author dc:creator

• Choi, Jongsok, 1977-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Harold F. Hemond.

• Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/29337

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/29337