[carnation]

Hi everyone,
I want to estimate the contaminant (BOD,COD, Total Nitrogen, Total Phosphorus, NH3, NO3-, NO2-, ,TSS) from the plant in the lake. This lake is covered full of water in rainy season and covered a half in dry season. In rainy season, the quality of the water is not good enough, therefore I want to estimate the contaminants from the plants distributing to the water.
if any of you can help me by discussing, give me some links....Iwould appreciate that.
Thank in advance

[tripton]

I´m sorry but I didn´t understood very clearly.
Do you have an industrial discharge from some industrial plant into the lake or do you have several discharges? how many discharging points do you have into the lake?
Could you take a sample from the pipe, before the flow mixing with the lake?

[carnation]

Dear tripton,
I'm sorry that my english made you confuse, The plants that I mentioned are vegetable not factory. They live in the lake.

[tripton]

OK. I´m sorry too for the missunderstood. Perhaps my english neither is very good. What´s your original language?
Really I haven´t personal experience with plants (vegetables). Like an idea I suggest to you to try taking some amount of plants (measuring that amount by volume or weight) and put them in a bucket with water sampled from the wetland. Then you can measure the parameters (NO3, NO2, COD, BOD, and so on) periodically for one or two weeks. Then you will get the data to be fitted to a curve (concentration vs time). That´s a similar procedure thats the one used to measure activity of some microorganisms in degradation plants.
You must be vary carefull when you analyse the data because you have adapted the system to laboratory conditions (mainly because the concentrations of N, C and P will change faster in the bucket than in the wetland). Perhaps you will need some expertise help to analyze correctly this curves. Anyway, you will get a first approach to the real behavior of the plants.
Of course, is better to practice more than one experiment to be sure about the results. Taking water samples and plants from several points of the wetland, you may get more detailed information because perhaps some parameters variate between different points of the wetland.

[carnation]

Dear Tripton,
It's very kind of you to answer my questions. For many reasons, I can't conduct the experiments that you recommended. I'm looking for something like Rapid Environmental Assessment Guidelines (published by WHO), in this guidelines they suggest the Load pollution of many pollutants from each industrial activities....
I'm looking for the same kind but refer to the biodegradation in nature itself. I think of course there are many researches in the world about it but I've not found yet.
Thank you for your kind reply

[tripton]

Carnation,
Really I´m not familiarized with that guidelines. Then, I will be thankful if you could send me some link to download those documents.
What´s the procedure suggested in those guidelines?
Because, I think that the analysis of those parameters is already standardized by EPA, Standard Methods and other standard procedures. If the problem is related to the monitoring planning or to applying a procedure like a kind of site evaluation, perhaps you can move the topic to Chemical Engineering forum (because it includes environmental engineering).

[kevins]

Do you want to estimate the concentration of contaminant in the lake water or the in the plant?

[carnation]

Dear Kevin,
In the lake water

[kevins]

Please search HACH company (www.hach.com) for methods and instrument.

[carnation]

Dear Tripton,
I'm sorry that I don't have the Text book in file so I couln't send it to you. I don't know whether we can find it in internet or not. Some of my friend gave it to me. In this text book (concluding 2 parts : Air, Water and Soil), after researching of many kinds of activities, they estimated the pollution load of some parameters (COD,BOD, Total Suspended Solids, Total Nitrogen..). This is not exactly 100% but we can use it for Rapid Assessment, Rapid calculation. And if we have enough budget or time, instruments, it's will be more accuracy by using instruments to analyse. I'm thinking about moving this topic to Chemical Egineering as you suggested, may be it's more suitable.
To Kevin:
Thank for your reply but I'm afraid that you don't understand clearly my question.(Sorry for my English!)

[kevins]

The plant growth rapidly in the lake ===> there is the source provide the nutrient.
The source is from the human activities or farm activities (the source without any treatment and discharge directly to the lake).

It is quite difficult to determine the concentration of COD, BOD.... in the plant tissue. e.g For COD test, we use strong acid dichromate reflux and the tissue will consume the dichromate and we cannot distinguish the value from COD or from tissue.

[carnation]

Dear kevin

The plant growth rapidly in the lake ===> there is the source provide the nutrient.
The source is from the human activities or farm activities (the source without any treatment and discharge directly to the lake).
The source is from the dead plant, because they are cover by water in sixth month. Not from human activities.
It is quite difficult to determine the concentration of COD, BOD.... in the plant tissue. e.g For COD test, we use strong acid dichromate reflux and the tissue will consume the dichromate and we cannot distinguish the value from COD or from tissue.

The thing here is looking for some typical equation or ratio of the elements (C,N,P) in the plant, and how to converse it into COD,BOD,SS,TN, NH4, NO3,TP...
And what Iam searching for is rapid assessment, without measuring or experiment. Of course it's not exact, just providing some information to that lake.

[kevins]

Oh, clear.

I think "APHA" can help to identify the plant and what kinds of nutrient (pollutant) rich in the water.