Biodegradation of wastewater nitrogen compounds in fractures: laboratory tests and field observations

Throughout several coastal regions in the Mediterranean where rainfalls rarely exceed 650 mm per year municipal treated wastewater can be conveniently reused for soil irrigation. Where the coastal aquifer supplies large populations with freshwater in such area, an assessment of ground water quality around spreading sites is needed. In this study, the efficacy of natural filtration on nitrogen degradation in wastewater spreads on the soil covering the Salento (Southern Italy) fractured limestone was quantified by using laboratory tests and field measurements. In the laboratory, effluent from municipal wastewater treatment plants was filtered through a package of fractures made by several slabs of limestone. An analysis of wastewater constituent concentrations over time allowed the decay rates and constants for nitrogen transformation during natural filtration to be estimated in both aerated and non-aerated (i.e., saturated) soil fractures. A simulation code, based on biodegradation decay constants defined in the laboratory experiments, was then used to quantify the total inorganic nitrogen removal from wastewater injected in an aquifer in the Salento region (Nardò). Here the water sampled in two monitoring wells at 320 m and 500 m from the wastewater injection site and downgradient with respect to groundwater flow was used to verify the laboratory nitrification and denitrification rates.