Effectiveness of riverbank filtration for removal of nitrogen from heavily polluted rivers: a case study of Kuihe River, Xuzhou, Jiangsu, China

The Kuihe River is in Xuzhou, Jiangsu, China. It contains high concentrations of nitrogen. The water in the Kuihe River recharges the groundwater via riverbank filtration (RBF) along the Xucun and Huangqiao reaches, which are characterized by unsaturated and saturated percolations, respectively. The two sections were selected to study the effectiveness of RBF to the nitrogen removal from the infiltrating river water. The results showed that the RBF in the saturated percolation had the potential to remove the nitrogen through biochemical processes. The nitrogen-removal rates were more than 95% over the monitoring period. However, the RBF in the unsaturated percolation resulted mainly from the physical process and thus had no efficacy for nitrogen removal.