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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database
Environmental Geosciences (DEG)
Abstract
Environmental Geosciences, V.
2005. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists/Division of Environmental Geosciences. All rights reserved.
DOI:10.1306/eg.06210404018
The use of dynamic modeling in assessing tritium phytoremediation
Karin T. Rebel,1 S. J. Riha,2 J. C. Seaman,3 C. D. Barton4
11123 Bradfield Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853; [email protected]
21110 Bradfield Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853; [email protected]
3Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, University of Georgia, Aiken, South Carolina 29802; [email protected]
4Department of Forestry, University of Kentucky, 203 Thomas Poe Cooper Building, Lexington, Kentucky 40546; [email protected]
AUTHORS
Karin Rebel is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Cornell University, and she is an active participator in Cornell University's Biogeochemistry Program. She is interested in using spatial dynamic modeling for ecohydrological and biogeochemical research.
Susan Riha is a professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Cornell University, and is the Charles L. Pack Research Professor of Forest Soils. She is interested in the interaction of plants with their physical environment and in dynamic simulation modeling. She works on both environmental and plant production problems on the state, national, and international levels.
John C. Seaman is an associate research professor with the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, located on the Savannah River Site and operated for the Department of Energy by the University of Georgia. Seaman received his B.S. (1987) and M.S. (1990) degrees from Texas A
M University in agronomy and 
soil
science, respectively, and his Ph.D. (1994) in environmental soil science from the University of Georgia.
Christopher D. Barton is an assistant professor of forest hydrology and watershed management in the Department of Forestry at the University of Kentucky. As a research hydrologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service (1999–2003), his research focused on hydrochemical processes associated with the restoration and remediation of disturbed and/or contaminated areas at the U.S. Department of Energy Savannah River Site, South Carolina.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors acknowledge Dan Hitchcock, Jery Stedinger, Susan Bell, John Blake, Julian Singer, Stephanie Smith, Robbie Williams, and Jason McRee. This research is funded by the Department of Energy–Savannah River Operations Office through the U.S. Forest Service Savannah River under Interagency Agreement DE-AI09-00SR22188 (Cooperative Agreement 01-CA-11083600-001) and by the Cornell National Science Foundation-Research Training Grant Biogeochemistry Program.
ABSTRACT
To minimize movement of tritium into surface waters at the Mixed Waste Management Facility at the Savannah River Site, tritium-contaminated groundwater released to the surface along seeps in the hillside is being retained in a constructed pond and used to irrigate forest acreage that lies over the contaminated groundwater. Management of the application of tritium-contaminated irrigation water needs to be evaluated in the context of the large amount of rainfall relative to evapotranspiration, the strong seasonality in evapotranspiration, and intra-annual and interannual variability in precipitation in this region. A dynamic simulation model of water and tritium fluxes in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum was developed to assess the efficiency (tritium transpired/tritium applied) of several irrigation management strategies. The model was parameterized using soil
-water content data measured at 18 sites for the first year of the project and evaluated using tritium activity measurements made at the same 18 sites over 2.5 yr. The model was then used to evaluate several irrigation strategies. The 25-yr efficiencies (tritium transpired/tritium applied) of the irrigation strategies were related to the quantity of irrigation water applied. There was a strong (r2 = 0.99) negative linear relationship between irrigation water applied and efficiency. When a quasi-steady state has been reached in the system, the annual efficiencies of all the irrigation strategies were negatively correlated with annual rainfall. Quantification of these relationships allows irrigation managers to choose irrigation strategies based on desired long-term system efficiency, which differ with climate and irrigation strategy.
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