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www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci-discuss.net/6/4535/2009/
doi:10.5194/hessd-6-4535-2009
© Author(s) 2009. This work is distributed
under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Dying to find the source – the quantitative use of rhodamine WT as a proxy for soluble point source pollutants in closed pipe surface drainage networks
School of Environmental Systems Engineering, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway (M015), Crawley, Western Australia, 6009, Australia
Abstract. Rhodamine WT (RWT), a xanthene dye, may serve as a proxy for soluble pollutants within quantitative tracing studies investigating point source contaminant transport. This study quantified the effects of altering the concentration, pH, temperature and salinity of a RWT solution on the detected fluorescence of RWT within the laboratory prior to a field release of RWT within a closed pipe urban drainage network. All RWT solutions exhibited stability and <10% variation from the expected concentration over a thirteen hour laboratory study period; pH related quenching of RWT fluorescence of up to 14.9% was observed for solutions with pH <3.9; and increasing salinity of RWT solution was found to have a negligible quenching effect. In direct contrast to previous studies RWT fluorescence was found to directly correlate with temperature of solution, and a temperature correction factor was determined and tested. If these effects were combined in an additive manner, the maximum potential underestimation and overestimation of RWT concentration are approximately 30% and 20% respectively. The field release study succeeded in detecting RWT at concentrations two orders of magnitude greater than background fluorescence, and RWT peak concentration prediction using longitudinal dispersion theory was achieved within 10% of the observed peaks.
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Citation: Mines, C. H., Ghadouani, A., and Ivey, G. N.: Dying to find the source – the quantitative use of rhodamine WT as a proxy for soluble point source pollutants in closed pipe surface drainage networks, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., 6, 4535-4562, doi:10.5194/hessd-6-4535-2009, 2009. Bibtex EndNote Reference Manager XML
