From managed aquifer recharge to soil aquifer treatment on agricultural soils: Concepts and challenges

Grinshpan, Maayan; Furman, Alex; Dahlke, H. E.; Raveh, Eran; Weisbrod, Noam

doi:10.1016/j.agwat.2021.106991

Cited by 24 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 114 publications

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“…This preliminary study opens the possibility to use subsurface soil air injection as an alternative to increase the recharge capacity of existing SAT sites while maintaining high effluent quality. Subsurface air injection may also solve some of the potential problems of Ag-SAT where appropriate DO and ORP conditions are important for crop health (Grinshpan et al, 2022(Grinshpan et al, , 2021. However, to reach a point of full application, further research is necessary, including a pilot-scale study, a technoeconomic assessment and optimization of the operational parameters (i.e., injection ports' spread across the basin, injection depth, airflow rate, pulse frequency and pulse duration).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving soil aquifer treatment efficiency using air injection into the subsurface

Arad

Ziner

Moshe

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Abstract. Soil aquifer treatment (SAT) is an effective and sustainable technology for wastewater or stormwater treatment, storage and reuse. During SAT, the vadose zone acts as a pseudo reactor in which physical and biochemical processes are utilized to improve the infiltrated water quality. Dissolved oxygen (DO) is necessary for aerobic microbial oxidation of carbon and nitrogen species in the effluent. Therefore, to enhance aeration, SAT is generally operated in flooding and drying cycles. While long drying periods (DPs) lead to better oxidizing conditions and improve water quality, they reduce recharge volumes. As the population grows, the quantity of effluent directed to SAT sites increases and increasing recharge volumes become a concern and often a limiting factor for SAT usage. In this study, direct subsurface air injection SAT (Air-SAT) was tested as an alternative to long DPs operation. Six long column experiments were conducted, aiming to examine the effect of air injection on the soil's water content, oxidation-reduction potential (ORP), DO concentrations, infiltrated amounts and ultimate outflow quality. In addition to basic parameters such as dissolved organic-C (DOC) and N species, the effluent quality analysis also included an examination of three emerging water contaminants – Ibuprofen, Carbamazepine and 1H-benzotriazole. Pulsed air injection experiments were conducted during continuous flooding at different operation modes (i.e., air pulse durations, frequencies and airflow rates). Our results show that the Air-SAT operation doubled the infiltration time (i.e., the infiltration was continuous with no off-time) and allowed up to 46 % higher infiltration rate in some cases. As a result, the infiltrated volumes in the Air-SAT modes were 47–203 % higher than the conventional flooding-drying operation (FDO). Longer air pulse duration (60 vs. 8 min) and higher airflow rate (~2 vs. ~1 SLPM) led to a higher infiltration rate, while a high pulse frequency (4.5−1 h−1) led to a lower infiltration rate compared to low-frequency operation (24−1 h−1). The air injection also allowed good recovery of the ORP and DO levels in the soil, especially in the high-frequency Air-SAT experiments, where steady aerobic conditions were maintained during most of the flooding. Consequently, the mean DOC, total Kjeldahl N (TKN), and Ibuprofen removals in these experiments were higher than in FDO by up to 9, 40, and 65 %, respectively. However, high-frequency Air-SAT during continuous flooding also led to significant deterioration in the infiltration rate, probably due to enhanced biological clogging. Hence, it may be more feasible and beneficial to combine it with the conventional FDO, allowing a steady infiltration rate and increased recharge volumes, while sustaining high effluent quality. While those results still need to be verified at full scale, they open the possibility of using air injection to minimize the DPs length and alleviate the pressure over existing SAT sites.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving soil aquifer treatment efficiency using air injection into the subsurface

Arad

Ziner

Moshe

et al. 2022

Preprint

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“…Growing seasons, as well as limits on how long perennial crops can tolerate flooding, place restrictions on the total time infiltration can occur on active farmland (Ganot and Dahlke 2021). Recharging recycled water on agricultural land is still largely unexplored (Grinshpan et al 2021). Given the scarcity of available recharge water, it is unlikely that there will be an excess at times when MAR is impossible.…”

Section: Competing Uses Of Watermentioning

confidence: 99%

Recycled water could recharge aquifers in the Central Valley

Gerenday¹,

Perrone²,

Clark³

et al. 2023

Calif Agr

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“…The wastewater is purified mainly through the physical and biochemical processes that occur during water passage through the vadose zone (Dillon, 2005;Elkayam et al, 2015). Although SAT systems have been used for decades (Grinshpan et al, 2021;Bouwer, 2002), the ability to estimate and predict a SAT system's performance is still challenging, and the optimal SAT operation is still under investigation (Ben Moshe et al, 2020;Sharma and Kennedy, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Continuous monitoring of a soil aquifer treatment system's physico-chemical conditions to optimize operational performance

Turkeltaub

Furman

Mannheim

et al. 2022

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Soil aquifer treatment (SAT) is a tertiary process for wastewater treatment, where the wastewater infiltrates through a thick vadose zone for purification and storage in the underneath aquifer. SAT infiltration basins are typically flooded intermittently, while maintaining a fixed ratio between the wetting and the drying stages. However, infiltration basins exhibit different physical and chemical properties, limiting the generalization of SAT operation to attain optimal efficiency. Since frequent sampling of the soil pore water to verify the SAT's biodegradation efficiency can be arduous, continuous monitoring of the SAT vadose zone's physico-chemical conditions is required. In this study, redox potential (Eh) was continuously monitored, together with other variables, such as volumetric water content (θ), soil temperature, and gaseous oxygen (O2), at multiple depths of a SAT vadose zone throughout the year and while the system was constrained to different operational modes. Hydrological models were calibrated and validated to water content observations, and they illustrated the seasonal changes in water infiltration. Furthermore, it was shown that, under long wetting stages during winter, there was a reduction in the SAT's drainage capabilities. The Eh observations, under long wetting stages, demonstrated larger variability and very negative values as ambient temperature increased. Assembling the daily Eh observations illustrated that a wetting stage should cease after about 30 h, once suboxic conditions are established. A drying stage's optimal duration should be 36 h, according to the Eh and O2 observations during summer and winter. Ultimately, the study shows that the length of wetting and drying stages should be defined separately, rather than by adhering to the wetting / drying ratio.

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From managed aquifer recharge to soil aquifer treatment on agricultural soils: Concepts and challenges

Cited by 24 publications

References 114 publications

Improving soil aquifer treatment efficiency using air injection into the subsurface

Improving soil aquifer treatment efficiency using air injection into the subsurface

Recycled water could recharge aquifers in the Central Valley

Continuous monitoring of a soil aquifer treatment system's physico-chemical conditions to optimize operational performance

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