wAbstract
@Non-point sources of nitrogen (N) contribute to pollution of
many coastal waters. Road runoff of N has been estimated for busy
highways, but residential roads could also be important non-point
sources. Here we estimate N in runoff from two small residential
roads (average annual daily traffic [AADT] 1,000) and a state
highway (AADT8,800) in a coastal watershed of Massachusetts,
USA. The antecedent dry-day traffic was correlated with total
dissolved nitrogen (TDN) concentrations at the beginning of each
rain event for the highway, but not for the residential roads.
The TDN concentrations declined exponentially with cumulative
precipitation during storms. Estimated annual road runoff is about
10 kg TDN-N ha-1 of road surface for all three roads,
which is about twice the bulk precipitation input. Because much
of this road runoff enters sensitive coast water bodies directly,
these inputs could be important for local water quality concerns.
Keywords: Cape Cod; Eutrophication; Nitrogen cycle; Road runoff;
Vehicle exhaustx
1. Introduction
2. Site and methodology
@2.1. Site description
@2.2. Sample collection
@2.3. Analysis of nitrogen
@2.4. Statistical analyses
@2.5. Calculation of annual rates of road runoff of TDN
3. Results and discussion
@3.1. Nitrogen concentrations
@3.2. Uncertainty analysis of N load in storm runoff
@3.3. Annual estimates
4. Conclusions
Acknowledgments
References