Release of nitrogen and phosphorus from sediment under liquefaction

Sediments in lakes and coasts can release N and P into the overlying water due to static diffusion or resuspension, the value of which may be higher than that of static diffusion.Moreover, the resuspension under sediment liquefaction may have important impact on the concentration of N and P in water.In this paper, flume experiments were carried out to study the release of N and P at phase of consolidation(I), non-liquefaction(Ⅱ), and liquefaction phase(Ⅲ).The results showed that the concentrations of total phosphorus(TP), total dissolved phosphorus(TDP), total nitrogen(TN) and total dissolved nitrogen(TDN) were lowest at phase I, the concentration of TP at phase Ⅱ increased several times than those at phase I, the concentration of TDP at phase Ⅱ meanly increased by only 0.2 times than those at phase I; the concentration of TP and TDP increased most(up to 59 times and 25 times, respectively) at phase Ⅲ with 14 cm wave height.The concentration of TN and TDN at both phase Ⅱ and Ⅲ increased several times than those of phase I.