No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The increased use of alcohols as gasoline additives, and possible substitutes, has prompted the investigation of the fate of gasoline/alcohol mixtures in the environment. In situ bioremediation is one technique that can successfully be applied to remove ground water contaminants particularly in situations where the adsorptive capacity of the soil plays a major role. Frequently, enhanced in situ bioremediation techniques rely on indigenous microorganisms to degrade ground water contaminants; this technique may sometimes include the addition of acclimated bacteria. In this study, soil microcosms were constructed in order to simulate the conditions found in a saturated aerobic aquifer. The biodegradation potential of methanol, benzene, and m-xylene was investigated. Uncontaminated soil from the surface, 12, 16.5, and 18 foot depths was utilized to observe the differences in microbial responses throughout the soil profile. The biodegradation potential of the indigenous microbiota was determined and compared to that of benzene acclimated bacteria, for all the compounds in the mixture. To observe the impact that chemical and physical soil characteristics may have on microbial responses, soils from each depth were classified on the basis of their particle size, moisture content and pH. Substantial methanol, benzene, and m-xylene biodegradation by the indigenous microorganisms occurred in all subsurface soils. While methanol was readily biodegradable over concentrations ranging from about 80 mg/L to about 200 mg/L, benzene inhibited methanol biodegradation at about 125 mg/L in all soil depths. The addition of benzene acclimated bacteria considerably increased the biodegradation rates of all compounds in the mixture. Such increases in biodegradation rates may be attributed to the activities of both groups, the indigenous microorganisms and the benzene acclimated bacteria. The results obtained by this study suggest that biodegradation of methanol, benzene, and m-xylene can readily occur in a saturated aerobic subsurface environment. The physical and chemical properties of a ground water aquifer seem to have a marked effect on microbial responses, and consequently on the biodegradation potential of water contaminants. / Master of Science

Pavement subsurface drainage systems (PSDS) are designed to drain the entrapped water out of pavement. To investigate the effects of various factors on the performance of PSDS, three dimensional models were developed using the finite element method to simulate the unsaturated drainage process in pavement. The finite element models were calibrated using the field information on outflow, peak flow, layer saturations, and time to drain. Through a series of parametric analyses, the factors that significantly influence the performance of PSDS were screened out, and a set of recommendations were made to improve our current drainage practices.The effects of pavement geometry on drainage were studied in this research. The analysis results indicate that edgedrain system can significantly improve the drainage efficiency of a pavement. The drainage performance of a pavement is mainly affected by the geometric factors that related to the edgedrain itself and the geometric factors related to the driving lanes have very limited effects.To investigate the influences of the properties of various pavement materials, some physical-empirical equations were developed in this research. These equations were used to predict the material hydraulic properties from their grain-size distributions and aggregate/asphalt contents. The analysis results of the models with various material properties indicate that the use of permeable base is effective in improving the drainage ability of a pavement. The performance of PSDS is not only affected by material permeability but also by their waterretention ability. The pavement works as an integrated hydraulic system and the hydraulic compatibility of materials must be considered in the PSDS design.The effects of climatic factors on pavement drainage were also studied in this research. A method was developed in this research to numerically describe the rainfall events. The analysis results of the models under various rainfall events indicate that rainfall duration is a more important parameter than the rainfall quantity in influencing the pavement drainage. Based on the analysis results, regression equations were developed for the estimation of pavement drainage. Finally, for design application purpose, a series of tables were included in this report to help with proper selected of pavement drainage options.

Objective of this dissertation was to study possibilities of detection of subsurface drainage systems by unmanned aerial vehicles. Unmanned aerial vehicles, "drones", served to military purpose in the past. Nowadays these unmanned aerial vehicles helps to map drainage on fields because it is hard to get draining plans today and a big part do not match with the actual implementation of drainage systems. We can also add that nobody cares about drainage today. Drainage drains of soaked soil and improve its harvest. Drainage facilitates transport of nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) to watercourses. Fields changes over time to parcels. There is description of sorting and functionality of drainage systems as well as description of malfunctions and used material in theoretical part. There is also description of unmanned aerial vehicles and a method of detection of subsurface drainage systems . Besides there is detailed description of the locality, function of drainage system and evaluation. There is description of indication of drainage on specialized aerial photography. Indications are compared with period plans. Methods of highlighting indications are applied and evaluated by programs Agisoft PhotoScan Professional and Arc GIS 10.1. Main results are photographies that demonstrate location of drainages. Using ground control points the image converted into the coordinate system.

Subsurface drainage has recently become common for agriculturally productive soils and key to maintain and improve crop production in poorly drained, frigid clay soils. The first study was conducted for four years (2014-17) at Casselton, ND to determine best combination of drainage, tillage and crop rotation for higher corn yield. Our finding suggested corn yield was highest with no drainage, CS and CH combination in years with drought conditions. The second study was conducted for three years (2015-17) to evaluate subsurface drainage spacing (9, 12, and 15m) and depth (0.9 and 1.2m) combination on corn, soybean and sugarbeet yields and residual soil nitrate-nitrogen (NO3-N) contents. Results indicated that 9 m drain spacing produced highest corn and soybean yield when average across three years in contrast with drain depth that has no effect on corn and soybean yield except for sugarbeet where the 1.2m depth yielded higher than the 0.9m depth. / North Dakota Corn Council / North Dakota Soybean Council / North Dakota Water Resources Research Institute

The wet weather pattern since the early 1990's has created two problems for the people living in the Red River Valley (RRV): (1) wet field conditions for farmers and (2) more frequent major spring floods in the Red River system. Farmers in the region are increasingly adopting subsurface drainage practice to remove excess water from their fields to mitigate the first problem. However, it is not clear whether subsurface drainage will deteriorate or mitigate the spring flood situation, the second problem. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was applied to evaluate the impacts of tile drainage on the Red River's streamflows. The model was calibrated and validated against monthly streamflows at the watershed scale and against daily tile flows at the field scale. The locations and areas of the existing and potential tile drained (PTD) areas were identified using a GIS based decision tree classification method. The existing and maximum PTD areas were found to be about 0.75 and 17.40% of the basin area, respectively. At the field scale, the range of Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) for model calibration and validation was 0.34-0.63. At the watershed scale, the model showed satisfactory performance in simulating monthly streamflows with NSE ranging from 0.69 to 0.99, except that the model under-predicted the highest spring flood peak flows in three years. The results of modeling a 100% tiled experimental field showed that about 30-40% of water yield was produced as tile flow. Surface runoff and soil water content decreased about 34% and 19%, respectively, due to tile drainage. However, the impact of subsurface drainage on evapotranspiration (ET) and water yield was mixed. ET slightly decreased in a wet year and slightly increased in a dry year, while the pattern for water yield was opposite to that of ET. The watershed-scaled modeling results showed that a tiling rate of 0.75-5.70% would not have significant effects on the monthly average streamflows in the Red River at Fargo. For the 17.40% tiling rate, the streamflow in the Red River at Fargo might increase up to 1% in April and about 2% in Fall (September to November), while decreasing up to 5% in the remaining months. This SWAT modeling study helped to better understand the impact of subsurface drainage on the water balance and streamflows in the Red River of the North basin. The findings will also help watershed managers in making decisions for the purpose of managing agricultural drainage development in the RRV and other snow dominated watersheds around the world.

No description available.

The movement of nitrogen from the surface, where it is applied as fertilizer, to groundwater is of importance due to the health concerns associated with nitrate and potential eutrophication of groundwater impacted surface water. The computer model, PRZM (Pesticide Root Zone Model) was used to simulate the transportation of nitrogen through the soil column, past the crop root zone to groundwater. Then MOC (Method of Characterization), a groundwater model, was used to transport the nitrogen that had reached the water table offsite. Results were compared to existing field data in an attempt to verify the validity of the simulation. / Master of Science