Abstract. The River Seine, below Paris, receives the effluents from a large sewage treatment plant, increasing the ammonium concentration up to 6 mgN.1-in late summer. Careful measurement of ammonium, nitrate and organic nitrogen during the downriver travel of the water masses over 100 km below the ouffall, along with direct determination of nitrification and benthic fluxes, allowed to establish a budget of nitrogen transport and transformations in this reach of the river. Nitrification is shown to start after a distinct period of several days required for the growth of a significant nitrifying bacterial population. Denitrification is active in the upper layer of bottom sediments but absent from the water colunm. Comparison of our data with those published for the period [1973][1974][1975][1976] shows that the nitrate load carried by the river has increased not only because of higher runoff of agricultural nitrate in the upstream part of the watershed, but also as a result of the severe reduction in the rate of denitrification processes, owing to the restoration of better oxygen conditions.
The Seine river crosses the most densely populated and industrialized area of France, Paris (16 million inhabitants), surrounded by fertile land with intensive agriculture.In the framework of a CNRS (Scientific Research National Center) research project, computer programs have been designed to tackle problems related to eutrophication, non-point pollution and the impact of sewage during dry or wet periods (urban runof and sewage network overflow). The PROSE software has been specially designed to simulate the behaviour of the most disturbed stretches of the Seine ecosystem on the last 300 kilometers of the river, upstream of the estuarine area.The I-D hydraulic sub-model of PROSE is based on a finite difference solution of Saint-Venant equations solved with the Preissman scheme. It simulates steady state situations as well as highly transient situations such as fast changes in river discharge during rainy periods or dam motions. The biological sub-model is based on the RIVE model, describing the major processes in a river ecosystem: primary production, heterotrophic bacterial activity and organic matter decomposition, major nutrients species (nitrogen, phosphorus), nitrifying activity and oxygen balance. Water column and sediment variables are simulated. Most of the parameters have been estimated during laboratory experiments or field studies.Different situations observed between 1989 and 1991 allowed a detailed validation of the modeL The model was then used to explore the reaction of the ecosystem (particularly its oxygen status) to changes in physical constrains (discharge, reoxygenation at dams) or in biological processes (release of microorganisms accompanying waste water discharge).
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