Nitrate Removal and Woodchip Properties across a Paired Denitrifying Bioreactor Treating Centralized Agricultural Ditch Flows

Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, AW-101 Turner Hall, MC-046, 1102 South Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801-4730, USA

Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801-4713, USA

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801-2350, USA

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Academic Editor: Jeff Strock

Water 2022, 14(1), 56; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14010056

Received: 2 December 2021 / Revised: 20 December 2021 / Accepted: 23 December 2021 / Published: 28 December 2021

(This article belongs to the Section Water, Agriculture and Aquaculture)

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Abstract

Treatment of nitrate loads by denitrifying bioreactors in centralized drainage ditches that receive subsurface tile drainage may offer a more effective alternative to end-of-pipe bioreactors. A paired denitrifying bioreactor design, consisting of an in-ditch bioreactor (18.3 × 2.1 × 0.2 m) treating ditch base flow and a diversion bioreactor (4.6 × 9.1 × 0.9 m) designed to treat high-flow events, was designed and constructed in an agricultural watershed (3.2 km² drainage area) in Illinois, USA. Flow and water chemistry were monitored for three years and the woodchip and bioreactor-associated soil were analyzed for denitrification potential and chemical properties after 25 months. The in-ditch bioreactor did not significantly reduce nitrate concentrations in the ditch, likely due to low hydraulic connectivity with stream water and sedimentation. The diversion bioreactor significantly reduced nitrate concentrations (58% average reduction) but treated only ~2% of annual ditch flow. Denitrification potential was significantly higher in the in-ditch bioreactor woodchips versus the diversion bioreactor after 25 months (2950 ± 580 vs. 620 ± 310 ng N g⁻¹ dry media h⁻¹). The passive flow design was simple to construct and did not restrict flow in the drainage ditch but resulted in low hydraulic exchange, limiting nitrate removal. View Full-Text

Keywords: passive treatment; denitrification potential; drainage ditch; carbon; water quality; ecological engineering

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MDPI and ACS Style

Maxwell, B.; Christianson, L.; Cooke, R.A.C.; Foltz, M.; Wickramarathne, N.; Chacon, R.; Christianson, R. Nitrate Removal and Woodchip Properties across a Paired Denitrifying Bioreactor Treating Centralized Agricultural Ditch Flows. Water 2022, 14, 56. https://doi.org/10.3390/w14010056

AMA Style

Maxwell B, Christianson L, Cooke RAC, Foltz M, Wickramarathne N, Chacon R, Christianson R. Nitrate Removal and Woodchip Properties across a Paired Denitrifying Bioreactor Treating Centralized Agricultural Ditch Flows. Water. 2022; 14(1):56. https://doi.org/10.3390/w14010056

Chicago/Turabian Style

Maxwell, Bryan, Laura Christianson, Richard A.C. Cooke, Mary Foltz, Niranga Wickramarathne, Ronnie Chacon, and Reid Christianson. 2022. "Nitrate Removal and Woodchip Properties across a Paired Denitrifying Bioreactor Treating Centralized Agricultural Ditch Flows" Water 14, no. 1: 56. https://doi.org/10.3390/w14010056

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Author Biographies

Bryan Maxwell

Dr. Bryan Maxwell joined the Christianson I-DROP Lab in August 2020. He has been working with bioreactors since approximately 2015. His PhD is in Biological and Agricultural Engineering from North Carolina State University and he previously did a Post Doc at Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena (Spain) studying bioreactors for treatment of brine wastewater.

Laura Christianson

Laura Christianson, Ph.D., P.E. founded and co-leads I-DROP at the University of Illinois. With a background in agricultural engineering, she formerly worked on the design of woodchip bioreactors for removal of nitrate from point and non-point sources as a research engineer, studied options to improve ditch drainage water quality in the Mid-Atlantic, and has done research on drained dairy pastures as a Fulbright Fellow in New Zealand. She is affiliate faculty in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, and is a licensed professional engineer in the state of Illinois. Dr. Christianson was recently featured in “A Day in the Life of a Scientist” video by the American Society of Agronomy and was awarded the society’s Environmental Quality section 2018 Inspiring Young Scientist Award. Dr. L. Christianson was honored with the ASABE’s Larry W. Turner Young Extension Professional Award in 2020.

Richard A. C. Cooke

https://grainger.illinois.edu/about/directory/faculty/rcooke

Mary Foltz

https://experts.okstate.edu/mary.foltz

Niranga Wickramarathne

Niranga Wickramarathne joined the Christianson I-DROP team in September 2017 as a staff researcher after completing her M.S. in Natural Resources (emphasis on water quality) at the University of Missouri-Columbia. In June 2018, she transitioned into her PhD program where she is focusing on denitrifying bioreactors. She holds a B.S in Agricultural Sciences and Management from Sabaragamuwa University in Sri Lanka and a M.S. in Crop Science from the Post Graduate Institute of Agriculture, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. Niranga served as the teaching assistant for the initial offering of Dr. L. Christianson’s CPSC 417: Water and Agriculture in the 21st Century.

Ronnie Chacon

Ronnie Chacon began his role as the Christianson lab’s Field Research Specialist in April 2019. He is a 2018 graduate of Zamorano University in Honduras. Ronnie is responsible for day-to-day field operations including coordinating staff and students, collecting data from field sites across the state, maintaining a wide variety of sampling equipment and data loggers, and data processing and analysis.

Reid Christianson

Reid Christianson, P.E., Ph.D. joined the Christianson I-DROP team at the University of Illinois in May 2017 as a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Crop Sciences. Through funding from the Walton Family Foundation, his work will initially focus on the development of a tracking framework which Mississippi River Basin states will use to report progress to the Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Task Force about their non-point source nutrient loss reductions. He has extensive water quality experience in both the Mississippi River Basin and the Chesapeake Bay watershed through his previous work on the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy science assessment team and by designing and modeling urban stormwater retrofits as a water resources engineer with the Center for Watershed Protection (Ellicott City, Maryland). Dr. R. Christianson’s Ph.D. is from Oklahoma State University in Biosystems Engineering, and he is a registered civil engineer in Illinois, Iowa, and Maryland.

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Nitrate Removal and Woodchip Properties across a Paired Denitrifying Bioreactor Treating Centralized Agricultural Ditch Flows

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