title: Carbon dioxide emissions from a septic tank soakaway in a northern maritime climate.
abstract: Here, we present the first attempt to quantify long-term and diurnal variations of CO2fluxes from a soakaway of an on-site wastewater treatment system serving a single house located in a northern maritime climate (Ireland). An automated soil gas flux chamber system was deployed semi-continuously over a period of 17months, recording hourly flux measurements from the soakaway (Fsoak) and a control site (Fcontrol). Soil gas fluxes expressed seasonal and diurnal variations: Fsoakand Fcontrolranged from 0.43 to 100.26μmolCO2m-2s-1and 0.45 to 19.92μmolCO2m-2s-1with median fluxes of 6.86 and 5.05μmolCO2m-2s-1, respectively. While temperature, soil water content, and atmospheric pressure were identified as the most significant environmental factors correlated to the release of CO2from the control site, fluxes from the soakaway showed weaker correlations in regard to environmental factors. Assuming homogeneous spatial flux distributions, the soakaway emitted 15.0kgyr-1more CO2into the atmosphere in total compared to a similarly sized control site.
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, Ireland. Electronic address: somlaihc@tcd.ie.
authors.forename: Celia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Somlai-Haase
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, Ireland; MACSI, University of Limerick, Ireland. Electronic address: jan.knappe@tcd.ie.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Knappe
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, Ireland. Electronic address: laurence.gill@tcd.ie.
authors.forename: Laurence
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gill
keywords: Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions; Ireland; On-site wastewater treatment system; Sanitation; Soil flux chamber