Abstract
Groundwater level recovery has a significant effect on the sources and transformation of nitrogen in groundwater, but there are still few studies on the influences of the water table on the sources and transformation of nitrogen in groundwater using field data. In this study, the changes in groundwater level, geochemical composition, and isotopic signatures of NO3- and NH4+ during a period of groundwater level recovery at a pilot site were analyzed in detail. The water table underwent progressive recovery of almost 1.6 m in 16 months. At a depth of 5.5 m below the surface, both low NH4+ and high NO3- appeared in the groundwater, whereas below that depth, both high NH4+ and low NO3- simultaneously appeared in the groundwater. The main sources of NO3- were manure and septic waste, and NH4+ fertilizers. The main sources of NH4+ were mineral fertilizers. The main transformation process were nitrification and denitrification at a depth of 5.5 m below the surface; below that depth, the main transformation processes were denitrification and dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA). This study provides a theoretical understanding of the relationship between the changing water table and nitrogen in groundwater level recovery areas.
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Data Availability
Most of the data presented in this study are available in the article or supplementary material. The isotopic data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The isotopic data are not publicly available due to the subsequent studies that will be conducted on this basis.
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Acknowledgments
The authors appreciated the great help from Beijing Institute of Geo-Environment Monitoring in soil and groundwater sampling, and also thank for constructive comments and suggestions raised from two anonymous reviewers to improve this paper.
Funding
This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41831283 and U2167211).
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Juanting Niu: field investigation and sampling, data processing and analysis, and writing—original draft preparation. Litang Hu: writing—review and editing, and visualization. Jian Li: data processing and analysis. Jinsheng Wang: project administration and funding acquisition. Shihang Yu: field investigation and sampling. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Niu, J., Hu, L., Li, J. et al. Sources and transformation of nitrogen in shallow aquifers with progressive water table recovery using geochemical and isotopic approaches. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 102281–102294 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-29386-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-29386-9