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Should sewage be discharged at the water surface or near the bed?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2006

Ronald Smith
Affiliation:
Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, Silver Street, Cambridge CB3 9EW

Abstract

The mortality of bacteria in sewage discharges into shallow seas is strongly influenced by light and varies with distance from the free surface. Here a criterion is derived for deciding between the opposing strategies of getting rapid bacterial decay by directing the sewage up to the surface at the sacrifice of initial dilution, or of achieving high initial dilution with a distributed source along the bed perpendicular to the flow direction.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1985 Cambridge University Press

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