Effects of Drawdown on Water Quality and Temperature in Duke University's Chiller Pond
Abstract
The Duke Pond (or chiller pond) collects runoff from 20% of the Duke University campus
and serves as a water source to the adjacent evaporative cooling plant. Due to frequent
water withdrawals from the chiller plant, the water levels are expected to fluctuate
anywhere from one to four feet daily (1.22 m). This project aims to (1) calculate
a water budget for the pond, (2) determine the effects of fluctuating water levels
on various water quality parameters, (3) assess whether the pond is compliant with
state water quality standards, and (4) determine whether the stream temperature is
significantly different at the inflow versus the outflow to the pond. An additional
goal was to develop a GIS tool that estimates the annual sediment yield from the Duke
pond’s watershed using the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE).
After the pond stabilized I found that dissolved oxygen, pH, temperature, and specific
conductance decrease with increasing water levels in the pond. The temperature is
not significantly different at the outflow compared to the inflow stream. For the
majority of the 8-month sampling period, dissolved oxygen and pH remain compliant
with the state standards. Chlorophyll-a had one occurrence where it exceeded the standard.
The USLE tool accurately delineates the watershed for the pond and calculates an annual
sediment loss of 168.2 lb/ac/yr.
Type
Master's projectPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/11829Citation
Giuliano, Brooke (2016). Effects of Drawdown on Water Quality and Temperature in Duke University's Chiller
Pond. Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/11829.Collections
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