Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2008NJ156B

Process-based modeling of nitrogen removal dynamics in brownfield and intact remnant wetland systems

Institute: New Jersey
Year Established: 2008 Start Date: 2008-03-01 End Date: 2009-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $5,000 Total Non-Federal Funds: $11,800

Principal Investigators: Monica Palta, Joan Ehrenfeld

Project Summary: Nitrogen (N) removal is commonly cited as a rationale behind wetland restoration projects, since wetlands have demonstrated the ability to prevent movement of excess N from upland areas into streams. As important as NO3- removal is to ecosystem health, however, there are few locations with measurements adequate to quantify denitrification rates and how they vary at a range of spatial and temporal scales. Wetlands in urban settings, while having the potential to deliver ecosystem services of high value (such as nutrient removal) to urban areas, pose a particular challenge in linking ecosystem processes (such as denitrification) with their environmental drivers, because urban wetlands has its own unique set of altered conditions. I propose to gather the data necessary to utilize a process-based model (DeNitrification-DeComposition, or DNDC to identify and predict hot spots and hot moments of denitrification within an urban site with homogeneous soils in order to compare spatiotemporal patterns in nitrate removal with a site that has soils that are highly heterogeneous and modified by human activity. Soil profiles will be taken using coring devices to delineate unique soil layers within the top 50 cm of the soil profile. Texture, density, porosity, and hydraulic conductivity will be determined on 5 samples from each replicate plot in the lab. Also, five samples will be collected from each replicate plot for determination of initial soil organic C, pH, and available inorganic N, denitrification potential, and nitrogen contained in atmospheric deposition. These data will be used to calibrate the model and to analyze the occurrence of hot spots and hot moments.