Biological Filtration is Resilient to Wildfire Ash-Associated Organic Carbon Threats to Drinking Water Treatment.

ABSTRACT: Elevated/altered levels of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in water can be challenging to treat after wildfire. Biologically mediated treatment removes some DOM; here, its ability to remove elevated/altered postfire dissolved organic carbon (DOC) resulting from wildfire ash was investigated for the first time. Treatment of wildfire ash-amended (low, moderate, high) source waters by bench-scale biofilters was evaluated in duplicate. Turbidity and DOC were typically well-removed (effluent turbidity ≤0.3 NTU; average DOC removal ∼20%) in all biofilters during periods of stable source water quality. Daily DOC removal across all biofilters (ash-amended and controls) was generally consistent, suggesting that (i) the biofilter DOC biodegradation capacity was not deleteriously impacted by the ash a

SUBMITTER: Blackburn EAJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10013178 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature