Sponsor
This research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation’s Macrosystems Biology program (NSF EF- 1065785) and by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GDE-1644868).
Published In
Ecosphere
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-2018
Subjects
Denitrification, Sewage -- Purification -- Filtration, Urban runoff -- Environmental aspects, Urban hydrology, Nitrous oxide -- Environmental aspects
Abstract
Stormwater ponds and retention basins are ubiquitous features throughout urban landscapes. These ponds are potentially important control points for nitrogen (N) removal from surface water bodies via denitrification. However, there are possible trade-offs to this water quality benefit if high N and contaminant concentrations in stormwater pond sediments decrease the complete reduction of nitrous oxide (N2O), a potent greenhouse gas, to dinitrogen (N2) during denitrification. This may occur through decreasing the abundance or efficiency of denitrifiers capable of producing the N2O reductase enzyme. We predicted that ponds draining increasingly urbanized landscapes would have higher N and metal concentrations in their sediments, and thereby greater N2O yields. We measured potential denitrification rates, N2O reductase (nosZ) gene frequencies, as well as sediment and porewater chemistry in 64 ponds distributed across eight U.S. cities. We found almost no correlation between the proportion of urban land cover surrounding ponds and the nutrient and contaminant concentrations in the stormwater pond sediments within or across all cities. Regression analysis revealed that the proportion of potential N2 and N2O production that could be explained was under different environmental controls. Our survey raises many new questions about why N fluxes and transformations vary so widely both within and across urban environments, but also allays the concern that elevated metal concentrations in urban stormwater ponds will increase N2O emissions. Urban stormwater ponds are unlikely to be a problematic source of N2O to the atmosphere, no matter their denitrification potential.
Rights
Copyright © 2018 The Authors.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Locate the Document
DOI
10.1002/ecs2.2318
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/26977
Citation Details
Blaszczak, J. R., Brian D. Badgley, Christopher Neill, Diane E. Pataki, Emily S. Bernhardt, Erin N. Rivers, … Sharon J. Hall. (2018). Sediment chemistry of urban stormwater ponds and controls on denitrification. Ecosphere, 9(6), e02318.