Urban Stream Burial Increases Watershed-Scale Nitrate Export.

ABSTRACT: Nitrogen (N) uptake in streams is an important ecosystem service that reduces nutrient loading to downstream ecosystems. Here we synthesize studies that investigated the effects of urban stream burial on N-uptake in two metropolitan areas and use simulation modeling to scale our measurements to the broader watershed scale. We report that nitrate travels on average 18 times farther downstream in buried than in open streams before being removed from the water column, indicating that burial substantially reduces N uptake in streams. Simulation modeling suggests that as burial expands throughout a river network, N uptake rates increase in the remaining open reaches which somewhat offsets reduced N uptake in buried reaches. This is particularly true at low levels of stream burial. At higher lev

SUBMITTER: Beaulieu JJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4505844 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature