Transport and transformation of de-icing urea from airport runways in a constructed wetland system

2003 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 283-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.-K. Thorén ◽  
C. Legrand ◽  
J. Herrmann

Urea, NH2-CO-NH2, is used as a de-icing agent at Kalmar Airport, southeast Sweden. During 1998-2001, urea contributed on average 30% of the yearly nitrogen (N) transport of 41,000 kg via Törnebybäcken stream to the coastal zone of the Baltic Sea. In order to reduce stream transport of N from airport, agricultural and other diffuse sources, a wetland was constructed in 1996. Annual wetland retention of total-N varied in the range of 2,500-8,100 kg (6-36% of influent) during 1998-2001, according to mass balances calculated from monthly sampling. During airport de-icing, January-March 2001, 660 kg urea-N out of 2,600 kg applied urea-N reached the wetland according to daily sampling. This indicated that 75% of the urea was transformed before entering the wetland. Urea was found to be only a minor part (8%) of total-N in the wetland influent. Calculations of cumulative urea-N loads at the wetland inlet and outlet respectively, showed a significant urea transformation during February 2001 with approximately 40% of the incoming urea-N being transformed in the wetland system. These results show that significant amounts of urea can be transformed in a wetland system at air temperatures around 0°C.

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 10829-10858 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Stålnacke ◽  
A. Pengerud ◽  
A. Vassiljev ◽  
E. Smedberg ◽  
C.-M. Mörth ◽  
...  

Abstract. In this paper, we estimate the surface water retention of nitrogen (N) in all the 117 drainage basins to the Baltic Sea with the use of a statistical model (MESAW) for source apportionment of riverine loads of pollutants. Our results show that the MESAW model was able to estimate the N load at the river mouth of 88 Baltic Sea rivers, for which we had observed data, with a sufficient degree of precision and accuracy. The estimated retention parameters were also statistically significant. Our results show that around 380 000 t of N are annually retained in surface waters draining to the Baltic Sea. The total annual riverine load from the 117 basins to the Baltic Sea was estimated to 570 000 t of N, giving a total surface water N retention of around 40%. In terms of absolute retention values, three major river basins account for 50% of the total retention in the 117 basins; i.e. around 104 000 t of N is retained in Neva, 55 000 t in Vistula and 32 000 t in Oder. The largest retention was found in river basins with a high percentage of lakes as indicated by a strong relationship between N retention (%) and share of lake area in the river drainage areas. For example in Göta älv, we estimated a total N retention of 72%, whereof 67% of the retention occurred in the lakes of that drainage area (Lake Vänern primarily). The obtained results will hopefully enable the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) to refine the nutrient load targets in the Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP), as well as to better identify cost-efficient measures to reduce nutrient loadings to the Baltic Sea.


2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 981-996 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Stålnacke ◽  
A. Pengerud ◽  
A. Vassiljev ◽  
E. Smedberg ◽  
C.-M. Mörth ◽  
...  

Abstract. In this paper, we estimate the surface water retention of nitrogen (N) in all the 117 drainage basins to the Baltic Sea with the use of a statistical model (MESAW) for source apportionment of riverine loads of pollutants. Our results show that the MESAW model was able to estimate the N load at the river mouth of 88 Baltic Sea rivers, for which we had observed data, with a sufficient degree of precision and accuracy. The estimated retention parameters were also statistically significant. Our results show that around 380 000 t of N are annually retained in surface waters draining to the Baltic Sea. The total annual riverine load from the 117 basins to the Baltic Sea was estimated at 570 000 t of N, giving a total surface water N retention of around 40%. In terms of absolute retention values, three major river basins account for 50% of the total retention in the 117 basins; i.e. around 104 000 t of N are retained in Neva, 55 000 t in Vistula and 32 000 t in Oder. The largest retention was found in river basins with a high percentage of lakes as indicated by a strong relationship between N retention (%) and share of lake area in the river drainage areas. For example in Göta älv, we estimated a total N retention of 72%, whereof 67% of the retention occurred in the lakes of that drainage area (Lake Vänern primarily). The obtained results will hopefully enable the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) to refine the nutrient load targets in the Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP), as well as to better identify cost-efficient measures to reduce nutrient loadings to the Baltic Sea.


2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 21533-21567 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Geels ◽  
K. M. Hansen ◽  
J. H. Christensen ◽  
C. Ambelas Skjøth ◽  
T. Ellermann ◽  
...  

Abstract. The ecological status of the Baltic Sea has for many years been affected by the high input of both waterborne and airborne nutrients. The focus is here on the airborne input of nitrogen (N) and the projected changes in this input, assuming the new National Emission Ceilings directive (NEC-II), currently under negotiation in the EU, is fulfilled towards the year 2020. The Danish Eulerian Hemispheric Model (DEHM) has been used to estimate the development in N deposition based on present day meteorology combined with present day (2007) or future (2020) anthropogenic emissions. By using a so called tagging method in the DEHM model, the contribution from ship traffic and from each of the nine countries with coastlines to the Baltic Sea has been assessed. The annual deposition to the Baltic Sea is estimated to be 203 k tonnes N for the present day scenario (2007) and 165 k tonnes N in the 2020 scenario, giving a projected reduction of 38 k tonnes N in the annual load in 2020. This equals a decline in N deposition of 19 %. The results from 20 model runs using the tagging method show that of the total N deposition in 2007, 52 % came from emissions within the bordering countries. By 2020 this is projected to decrease to 48 %. For some countries the projected decrease in N deposition arising from the implementation of the NEC-II directive will be a considerable part of the reductions agreed on in the provisional reduction targets of the Baltic Sea Action Plan. This underlines the importance of including projections like the current in future updates of the Baltic Sea Action Plan.


Author(s):  
Jan Herrmann ◽  
Miku Yoshiyama

Stormwaters’ heavy loads of nutrients, metals and oil etc, via urban ditches / streams, are increasingly treated in engineered shallow wetlands/ponds. Such approaches are still only remedying a minor part of affected storm waters, urban streams, and freshwater and marine recipients. In Kalmar, a middle-sized Swedish town at the Baltic Sea, > 10 such wetlands / ponds are established for reduction of such heavily polluted waters. Aiming at determining the effectiveness in reduction of nutrients and metals, and the facilitation of the aquatic biodiversity (primarily in the wetlands), monitoring programs were initiated. Regular in/outflow water sampling, water flow and biology, were followed for 1-2-3 years (varied with parameter) after construction in two of these wetlands. Skälby Dämme, constructed 14 years ago (2000), showed ca 40 % nutrient reduction figures, less for TSS and metals, while Hagbygärde Dämme, constructed two years ago (2012), attained only much lower results. Reasons for this difference might be that Hagbygärde is less surrounded by forested land, also that less than one year had elapsed before evaluation commenced, while two-three years in Skälby. More recent monitoring in Skälby Dämme is also compared with. Moreover, this kind of wetlands/ponds is shown to favour the biodiversity of benthic invertebrates, (aquatic) plants and birds, although with trends to decline in species richness some years after the initial colonization period.


1988 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 117-122
Author(s):  
Jan Bondam ◽  
Manfred Störr

In the kaolin deposit near Rønne on the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea a number of well-rounded, unweathered, boulder-like relicts of the granodioritic parent rock are found, embedded in kaolin. Samples have been taken of one relict at 2 cm interval from the fresh material outwards into the kaolin. The distribution pattern of the major elements in these samples has been studied in order to gain an impression of the leaching conditions at the time of formation, in the immediate vicinity of the relict. This distribution shows on a minor scale, what previously has been demonstrated in bulk for the whole deposit that leaching effects have not been uniform for the different elements, leading to a relative enrichment of calcium in the transition zone close to the unweathered parent rock. TEM and SEM observations revealed that halloysite and smectite are the dominant clay minerals of the transition zone, where kaolinite occurs only sporadically. These minerals apparently become unstable when alkalis and alkali earths are progres­sively leached, while kaolinite emerges as the pincipal clay mineral, and amphibole and plagioclase no longer remain in the residual mineral assemblage.


Boreas ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Christiansen ◽  
Helmar Kunzendorf ◽  
Kay-Christian Emeis ◽  
Rudolf Endler ◽  
Ulrich Struck ◽  
...  

2003 ◽  
pp. 136-146
Author(s):  
K. Liuhto

Statistical data on reserves, production and exports of Russian oil are provided in the article. The author pays special attention to the expansion of opportunities of sea oil transportation by construction of new oil terminals in the North-West of the country and first of all the largest terminal in Murmansk. In his opinion, one of the main problems in this sphere is prevention of ecological accidents in the process of oil transportation through the Baltic sea ports.


Author(s):  
Angelina E. Shatalova ◽  
Uriy A. Kublitsky ◽  
Dmitry A. Subetto ◽  
Anna V. Ludikova ◽  
Alar Rosentau ◽  
...  

The study of paleogeography of lakes is an actual and important direction in modern science. As part of the study of lakes in the North-West of the Karelian Isthmus, this analysis will establish the dynamics of salinity of objects, which will allow to reconstruct changes in the level of the Baltic Sea in the Holocene.


Author(s):  
Lidiya Derbenyova

The article explores the role of antropoetonyms in the reader’s “horizon of expectation” formation. As a kind of “text in the text”, antropoetonyms are concentrating a large amount of information on a minor part of the text, reflecting the main theme of the work. As a “text” this class of poetonyms performs a number of functions: transmission and storage of information, generation of new meanings, the function of “cultural memory”, which explains the readers’ “horizon of expectations”. In analyzing the context of the literary work we should consider the function of antropoetonyms in vertical context (the link between artistic and other texts, and the groundwork system of culture), as well as in the context of the horizontal one (times’ connection realized in the communication chain from the word to the text; the author’s intention). In this aspect, the role of antropoetonyms in the structure of the literary text is extremely significant because antropoetonyms convey an associative nature, generating a complex mechanism of allusions. It’s an open fact that they always transmit information about the preceding text and suggest a double decoding. On the one hand, the recipient decodes this information, on the other – accepts this as a sort of hidden, “secret” sense.


Author(s):  
Małgorzata Leśniewska ◽  
Małgorzata Witak

Holocene diatom biostratigraphy of the SW Gulf of Gdańsk, Southern Baltic Sea (part III)The palaeoenvironmental changes of the south-western part of the Gulf of Gdańsk during the last 8,000 years, with reference to the stages of the Baltic Sea, were reconstructed. Diatom analyses of two cores taken from the shallower and deeper parts of the basin enabled the conclusion to be drawn that the microflora studied developed in the three Baltic phases: Mastogloia, Littorina and Post-Littorina. Moreover, the so-called anthropogenic assemblage was observed in subbottom sediments of the study area.


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