The ability of detainment bunds to decrease sediments transported from pastoral catchments in surface runoff

Abstract

Erosion leading to sedimentation in surface water may disrupt aquatic habitats and deliver sediment-bound nutrients that contribute to eutrophication. Land use changes causing loss of native vegetation have accelerated already naturally high erosion rates in New Zealand and increased sedimentation in streams and lakes. Sediment-bound phosphorus (P) makes up 71-79% of the 17-19 t P y À1 delivered from anthropogenic sources to Lake Rotorua in New Zealand. Detainment bunds (DBs) were first implemented in the Lake Rotorua catchment in 2010 as a strategy to address P losses from pastoral agriculture. The bunds are 1.5-2 m high earthen stormwater retention structures constructed across the flow path of targeted loworder ephemeral streams with the purpose of temporarily ponding runoff on productive pastures. The current DB design protocol recommends a minimum pond volume of 120 m 3 ha À1 of contributing catchment with a maximum pond storage capacity of 10 000 m 3 . No previous study has investigated the ability of DBs to decrease annual suspended sediment (SS) loads leaving pastoral catchments. Annual SS yields delivered to two DBs with 20 ha and 55 ha catchments were 109 and 28 kg SS ha À1 , respectively, during this 12-month study. The DBs retained 1280 kg (59%) and 789 kg (51%) of annual SS loads delivered from the catchments as a result of the bunds' ability to impede stormflow and facilitate soil infiltration and sediment deposition. The results of this study highlight the ability of DBs to decrease SS loads transported from pastures in surface runoff, even during large storm events, and suggests DBs are able to reduce P loading in Lake Rotorua.

Evaluating the Cost-Effectiveness of Green Infrastructure for Mitigating Diffuse Agricultural Contaminant Losses

“…Detainment bunds are a type of sediment trap involving low dams (<3 m) strategically positioned across ephemeral flow paths to accumulate runoff. This temporary pooling process aids in capturing sediment, particulate phosphorus, and bacteria [33,34]. The accumulated water either seeps into the ground in areas with permeable soil or is slowly discharged through a restricted outlet or manually released after a few days.…”

“…We adjusted the curve to include only the New Zealand pastoral farming data points and made it through (0, 0) by changing it to a symmetric sigmoidal function (Figure 5). Smith and Muirhead [38] show a similar sediment reduction as Levine [33] at a volume of 120 m 3 /ha, but they do not report impacts on TN or TP. Therefore, we use the same shape curves for TP going through the midpoints of the Levine [37] results.…”