Denitrification at a Long‐Term Forested Land Treatment System in the Piedmont of Georgia

ABSTRACT Spray irrigation of forested land can provide an effective system for nutrient removal and treatment of municipal wastewater. Evolution of N2 + N2O from denitrifying activity is an important renovation pathway for N applied to forested land treatment systems. Federal and state guidance documents for design of forested land treatment systems indicate the expected range for denitrification to be up to 25% of applied N, and most forest land treatment systems are designed using values from 15 to 20% of applied N. However, few measurements of denitrification following long‐term wastewater applications at forested land treatment sites exist. In this study, soil N2 + N2O–N evolution was directly measured at four different landscape positions (hilltop, midslope, toe‐slope, and riparian zone) in a forested land treatment facility in the Georgia Piedmont that has been operating for more than 13 yr. Denitrification rates within effluent‐irrigated areas were significantly greater than rates in adjacent nonirrigated buffer zones. Rates of N2 + N2O–N evolved from soil in irrigated forests ranged from 5 to 10 kg ha−1 yr−1 N on the three upland landscape positions and averaged 38 kg ha−1 yr−1 N within the riparian zone. The relationship between measured riparian zone denitrification rates and soil physical and chemical properties was poor. The best relationship was with soil temperature, with an r2 of 0.18. Overall, on a landscape position weighted basis, only 2.4% of the wastewater‐applied N was lost through denitrification.