River basin hydrosalinity modeling
ABSTRACT Tanji, K.K., (1981). River basin hydrosalinity modeling. Agric. Water Manage., 1981. Hydrologic-salinity modeling at the river sub-basin and basin spatial scales in the Western U.S.A. are evaluated. In the past two decades, significant advances have been made in basin hydrosalinity modeling. These models are providing increased understanding of the complexity of water and salt flows in large-scale systems. Most models, however, have been developed for specific problems and do not lend themselves for application to a wide variety of salinity problems. Much more work is needed in the areas of field verification of models and increasing their utility for management and policy-making decisions.
Incorporation of salinity in Water Availability Modeling
Summary Natural salt pollution from geologic formations in the upper watersheds of several large river basins in the Southwestern United States severely constrains the use of otherwise available major water supply sources. The Water Rights Analysis Package modeling system has been routinely applied in Texas since the late 1990s in regional and statewide planning studies and administration of the state’s water rights permit system, but without consideration of water quality. The modeling system was recently expanded to incorporate salinity considerations in assessments of river/reservoir system capabilities for supplying water for environmental, municipal, agricultural, and industrial needs. Salinity loads and concentrations are tracked through systems of river reaches and reservoirs to develop concentration frequency statistics that augment flow frequency and water supply reliability metrics at pertinent locations for alternative water management strategies. Flexible generalized capabilities are developed for using limited observed salinity data to model highly variable concentrations imposed upon complex river regulation infrastructure and institutional water allocation/management practices.
A quantitative measure of nitrifying bacterial growth.
Nitrifying bacteria convert ammonia (NH3) to nitrate (NO3-) in a nitrification reaction. Methods to quantitatively separate the growth rate of these important bacterial populations from that of the dominant heterotrophic bacteria are important to our understanding of the nitrification process. The changing concentration of ammonia is often used as an indirect measure of nitrification but ammonification processes generate ammonia and confound this approach while heterotrophs remove nitrate via denitrification. Molecular probe methods can tell us what proportion of the microbial community is nitrifying bacteria but not their growth rate. The technique proposed here was able to quantify the growth rate of the nitrifying bacterial populations amidst complex ecological processes. The method incubates [methyl-3H] thymidine with water samples in the presence and absence of an inhibitor of nitrification-thiourea. The radioactively labeled DNA in the growing bacteria was extracted. The rate of incorporation of the label into the dividing bacterial DNA was used to determine bacterial growth rate. Total bacterial community growth rates in full-scale and pilot-scale fixed-film nitrifying reactors and an activated sludge reactor were 2.1 x 10(8), 4.1 x 10(8) and 0.4 x 10(8)cell ml(-1)d(-1), respectively; the growth rate of autotrophic-nitrifying bacteria was 0.7 x 10(8), 2.6 x 10(8) and 0.01 x 10(8)cell ml(-1)d(-1), respectively. Autotrophic-nitrifying bacteria contributed 30% and 60% of the total bacterial community growth rate in the nitrifying reactors whereas only 2% was observed in the activated sludge reactor that was not designed to nitrify. The rates of ammonia loss from the nitrifying reactors corresponded to the rate of growth of the nitrifying bacteria. This method has the potential to more often identify factors that enhance or limit nitrifying processes in both engineered and natural aquatic environments.