Atrazine Contamination and Suspended Sediment Transport within Logsdon River, Mammoth Cave, Kentucky

Understanding the potential for karst aquifer contamination by sediment-sorbed pesticides is important for cave conservation efforts in agricultural landscapes. Flow rate, water quality parameters and suspended sediment concentrations were measured in Logsdon River, a ~10km karst conduit within the Turnhole Spring Groundwater Basin of Mammoth Cave National Park to determine characteristics of storm-period transport of sediment-sorbed atrazine through a conduit-flow karst aquifer. Analysis of two independent precipitation events occurring in the Spring of 2008 from May 2-4 and May 27-29 demonstrated the rapid response of the Logsdon River to precipitation events with detections of atrazine increasing during the initial turbidity peak and decline in spC, indicating that the atrazine arrives with the initial flush of surface waters that enters the conduit. Distinct peaks of atrazine did not coincide with fine grained (silt and clay-sized) sediment peaks and concentrations of atrazine remained elevated on the falling limb of the hydrograph as turbidity declined. In addition, no systematic relation between filtered and unfiltered samples was evident. There was also exceedingly weak correlation between the concentration of atrazine and suspended sediment, suggesting that if atrazine is sorbed to fine sediment particles this sorption involves only the fractions finer than 0.22 μm.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Department of Geography and Geology

Year

2008

Author dc:creator

• Schenck Brown, Julie Eileen

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dr. Stephen Kenworthy (Director), Dr. Chris Groves, Dr. C. Warren Campbell, Dr. L. Michael Trapasso

• karst aquifer contamination
• Mammoth Cave National Park
• atrazine
• cave conservation
• Geology
• Natural Resources and Conservation
• Natural Resources Management and Policy

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/38

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.wku.edu:theses-1037