Document Type
Article
Date of Original Version
4-2-2014
Abstract
Segmented mesocosms (n = 3) packed with sand, sandy loam or clay loam soil were used to determine the effect of soil texture and depth on transport of two septic tank effluent (STE)-borne microbial pathogen surrogates—green fluorescent protein-labeled E. coli (GFPE) and MS-2 coliphage—in soil treatment units. HYDRUS 2D/3D software was used to model the transport of these microbes from the infiltrative surface. Mesocosms were spiked with GFPE and MS-2 coliphage at 105 cfu/mL STE and 105–106 pfu/mL STE, respectively. In all soils, removal rates were >99.99% at 25 cm. The transport simulation compared (1) optimization; and (2) trial-and-error modeling approaches. Only slight differences between the transport parameters were observed between these approaches. Treating both the die-off rates and attachment/detachment rates as variables resulted in an overall better model fit, particularly for the tailing phase of the experiments. Independent of the fitting procedure, attachment rates computed by the model were higher in sandy and sandy loam soils than clay, which was attributed to unsaturated flow conditions at lower water content in the coarser-textured soils. Early breakthrough of the bacteria and virus indicated the presence of preferential flow in the system in the structured clay loam soil, resulting in faster movement of water and microbes through the soil relative to a conservative tracer (bromide).
Citation/Publisher Attribution
Morales, I., Atoyan, J. A., Amador, J. A., & Boving, T. (2014). Transport of Pathogen Surrogates in Soil Treatment Units: Numerical Modeling. Water, 6(4): 818-838. doi: 10.3390/w6040818
Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/w6040818
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.