Development of a Hybrid Best Management Practice System for Control of Agricultural Nonpoint Water Pollution

Minyoung Kim^*, Seounghee Kim, Sangbong Lee, Yongho Cho

National Academy of Agricultural Science, Rural Development Administration, Jeonju City, Republic of Korea.

DOI: 10.4236/jacen.2014.34020                

Abstract

Agricultural drainage ditches play an important role in removing surplus water; however, these can also potentially act as major conduits of agricultural nonpoint source pollutants, including sediment, nitrogen, and phosphorus. A supplementary hybrid system to limit such pollution was developed in this study; this consists of biodegradable fiber check dams, used in combination with a synthetic polymer (Polyacrylamide, PAM). An open channel experiment was conducted to optimize the design of the hybrid system, taking into account a variety of physical and hydraulic conditions. Subsequent field application of the hybrid system improved runoff water quality, such as 10.0% to 98.3% reduction for suspended solids, 25.2% to 98.4% reduction for turbidity, 21.1% to 91.1% increase for BOD, 19.2% to 75.4% increase for COD, 21.0% to 73.3% reduction for T-N, 5.9% to 91.2% reduction for T-P and 35.7% to 97.6% reduction for fecal coliforms. This clearly showed that this hybrid system could play a significant role in supplementing conventional best management practices.

Keywords

Biodegradable Check Dam (BCD), Flocculation, Nonpoint Source (NPS) Pollution, Sedimentation, Synthetic Polymer

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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