Diagenetic Oxygen Equivalents Model of Sediment Oxygen Demand

摘要

The consumption of oxygen in the overlying water by sediments is an important component in the oxygen balance of most natural waters. Conventional practice is to specify the magnitude of this sink using direct uptake measurements. Unfortunately, if the management alternative being investigated affects the supply of particulate organic material to the sediment then the use of the existing sediment oxygen demand (SOD) for dissolved oxygen projections may be in error. Examples include the oxygen consequences of phosphorus loading reductions where algal carbon decay in the sediment is a principle DO sink. It is the purpose of this paper to present a model of sediment oxygen demand which attempts to solve the problem in a fashion which ultimately dispenses with the complexity and relates sediment oxygen demand to the flux of the oxygen equivalents of all reduced substances in the interstitial water without specific regard to their identity.