Benthic nitrite exchanges in the Seine River (France)

We expanded the reaction network for benthic N cycling in an existing early diagenetic computer code in order to explicitly include the reaction pathways producing and consuming nitrite. Reactive transport calculations are then used to interpret a data set comprising pore water profiles and benthic exchange fluxes of nitrate, nitrite and ammonium collected in the Seine River upstream and downstream of the SAV WWTP. Because of the highly dynamic and heterogeneous nature of streambed sediments, we primarily aim to capture the general trends of the measured pore water depth profiles and benthic fluxes. We then use the model as a sensitivity tool to delineate the main controls on benthic exchange fluxes of nitrite.