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Calibration and application of an automated seepage meter for monitoring water flow across the sediment-water interface

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Abstract

The advective flow of sediment pore water is an important parameter for understanding natural geochemical processes within lake, river, wetland, and marine sediments and also for properly designing permeable remedial sediment caps placed over contaminated sediments. Automated heat pulse seepage meters can be used to measure the vertical component of sediment pore water flow (i.e., vertical Darcy velocity); however, little information on meter calibration as a function of ambient water temperature exists in the literature. As a result, a method with associated equations for calibrating a heat pulse seepage meter as a function of ambient water temperature is fully described in this paper. Results of meter calibration over the temperature range 7.5 to 21.2 ° C indicate that errors in accuracy are significant if proper temperature-dependence calibration is not performed. The proposed calibration method allows for temperature corrections to be made automatically in the field at any ambient water temperature. The significance of these corrections is discussed.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by Weston Solutions Inc., Purdue University, and The National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.41301546). This project was also sponsored by the Major Science and Technology Program for Water Pollution Control and Treatment (Grant No. 2012ZX07101-008) of China.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Civil Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, 210096, China

    Tengyi Zhu & Dafang Fu

  2. Lyles School of Civil Engineering, and Division of Environmental and Ecological Engineering, Purdue University, 550 Stadium Mall Drive, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA

    Tengyi Zhu & Chad T. Jafvert

  3. Jenkinson Environmental Services, LLC, West Lafayette, IN, 47906, USA

    Byron Jenkinson

Authors
  1. Tengyi Zhu
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  2. Dafang Fu
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  3. Byron Jenkinson
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  4. Chad T. Jafvert
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Correspondence to Chad T. Jafvert.

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Zhu, T., Fu, D., Jenkinson, B. et al. Calibration and application of an automated seepage meter for monitoring water flow across the sediment-water interface. Environ Monit Assess 187, 171 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-015-4388-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-015-4388-7

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