A research project was undertaken to study the hydrology and water quality of a 26 km$ sp2$ intensive agricultural watershed over an 18 month period. Flow and precipitation data were used to establish hydrologic parameters for the watershed and to empirically model hydrologic processes. Water samples taken from the outlet of the watershed were analyzed for nitrate, phosphate, suspended sediment and atrazine. Water quality data were analyzed to establish temporal trends in pollutant concentration and load in the watercourse. / The measured time of concentration was found to be consistent with a mean of 6.89 hours for the 25 storms profiled. The time to peak was found to vary linearly with storm duration. The event recession constant was measured to be 0.9715. Regression analysis was performed on measured hydrologic properties. The strongest relationship was found between the percentage of rainfall appearing as runoff versus the sum of the 72 hour antecedent rainfall plus the storm rainfall. / Spring snowmelt was identified as a significant period of pollutant material export. All pollutant materials displayed seasonal variability in the export process. Temporal variability accounted for poor correlations between observed hydrologic and water quality parameters in the two seasons for which data were available. / Peak pollutant concentrations were associated with high flow events. Maximum observed concentrations for nitrate, phosphate, suspended sediment and atrazine were 8.6 mg/l, 0.478 mg/l, 0.7 g/l, and 8.06 ug/l respectively.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.23906 |
| Date | January 1996 |
| Creators | Lapp, Paul, 1968- |
| Contributors | Madramootoo, C. A. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001499781, proquestno: MM12219, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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