Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2009NJ193B

Development of a profile SOD measurement technique

Institute: New Jersey
Year Established: 2009 Start Date: 2009-03-01 End Date: 2010-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $17,500 Total Non-Federal Funds: $35,000

Principal Investigators: Robert Miskewitz

Project Summary: Sediment oxygen demand (SOD) is an important environmental parameter for use in modeling and TMDL investigations. The most common method of SOD measurement involves enclosing a known volume of water in a chamber over a known area of riverbed surface, then measuring the dissolved oxygen concentration over a period of time. The water in the chamber is mixed sufficiently to create a constant dissolved oxygen concentration throughout the chamber. This method approximates a relatively high flow system where the SOD is sediment side controlled, however it has been suggested that at low flow, SOD may be somewhat water side controlled. In order to address this concern, a new method is proposed that will calculate the SOD via the dissolved oxygen profile and the turbulent eddy diffusivity. This method will provide real time SOD measurements using a relatively simple experimental setup. It will also address the uncertainty introduced by flow variation, commonly believed to be the largest source of variation in SOD. The proposed method will tested along side a well documented chamber method. It is expected that the new method will have the benefits of greater ease of use, shorter duration, and increased accuracy at low flows.