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Road-deposited sediments (RDS) on an expressway, residual RDS collected after sweeping, and RDS removed by means of sweeping were analyzed to evaluate the degree to which sweeping removed various non-point source contaminants. The total RDS load was 393.1 ± 80.3 kg/km and the RDS, residual RDS, and swept RDS were all highly polluted with organics, nutrients, and metals. Among the metals studied, Cu, Zn, Pb, Ni, Ca, and Fe were significantly enriched, and most of the contaminants were associated with particles within the size range from 63 μm to 2 mm. Sweeping reduced RDS and its associated contaminants by 33.3-49.1% on average. We also measured the biological oxygen demand (BOD) of RDS in the present work, representing to our knowledge the first time that this has been done; we found that RDS contains a significant amount of biodegradable organics and that the reduction of BOD by sweeping was higher than that of other contaminants. Significant correlations were found between the contaminants measured, indicating that the organics and the metals originated from both exhaust and non-exhaust particles. Meanwhile, the concentrations of Cu and Ni were higher in 63 μm-2 mm particles than in smaller particles, suggesting that some metals in RDS likely exist intrinsically in particles, rather than only as adsorbates on particle surfaces. Overall, the results in this study showed that sweeping to collect RDS can be a good alternative for reduction of contaminants in runoff.

Road deposited sediments (RDS) swept from highways in South Korea were characterized to quantitatively evaluate the reduction in non-point source pollutants by sweeping. The swept RDS consisted primarily of sand (63 μm to 2 mm) particles (80.34 ± 8.33% of total weight) highly contaminated by organics, nutrients and heavy metals. The average concentrations of total organic carbon (TOC), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), volatile solids (VS), total nitrogen (T-N), and total phosphorus (T-P) were 20.17 ± 9.13, 1.04 ± 0.62, 39.92 ± 16.55, 1.99 ± 0.96, and 0.54 ± 0.19 g kg−1 (±one standard deviation), respectively, for 63 μm to 2 mm RDS. The concentrations of the pollutants were high for RDS smaller than 63 μm, but most of the mass was associated with the 63 μm to 2 mm RDS. The results suggest that the pollutants associated with RDS swept from highways originated mainly from engine wear, exhaust emissions, and tire wear. These results were different from the RDS on roads in residential and commercial areas, where natural particles and brake wear contribute significantly to RDS. In addition, the reductions in TOC, BOD, VS, T-N, T-P, Cu, Pb, Zn, Fe, and As based on the swept RDS measurements were calculated to be 3,355.3, 175.1, 6,621.4, 323.0, 88.3, 30.3, 13.7, 1.0, 303.4, 11,198.7, and 0.4 g km−1, respectively.

In this study, to evaluate the abatement of runoff pollution loads by the road sweeping(cleaning), various investigations are implemented at the sample area of the highway. As the results of evaluating the removal efficiency of pollutants along road cleaning, TSS showed about 78 % of the removal efficiency and COD showed 49 % of removal efficiency through the operation of cleaning vehicle of vacuum suction method. In case of TN and TP, they showed the relatively-lower removal efficiency by 30~35 %. TSS removal efficiency along the number of cleaning appeared about 60 % in case of one time of cleaning and the additional removal effect did not appear though the number of cleaning increased to two times. With running speed of cleaning vehicle, TSS removal ratio is lessened from 60 % to 20 % when cleaning vehicle speed up to 20 km/hr from 6 km/hr. It seems that the reasons why the removal efficiencies are inversely proportional to its speed are related to the lower vacuum efficiencies and the disturbed particles on the road. In the pollutant build-up analysis, it is showed that it takes more time to the critical pollutant build-up in the shoulder than the center of the road. It is also showed that the proper cleaning cycle is recommended as 4~6 dry weather days without rainfall events.

Impervious surface increase due to urbanization, one of the leading causes of pavement increased the runoff coefficient, peak flow, and reducing the infiltration flow and thereby causing flooding and river erosion is occurring in aquatic ecosystems are known to impair. This study aimed to classify use type of detailed land into the road, reststop, tollgates and etc. focused on major domestic highways, to understand the characteristics of rainfall runoff pollutants and to calculate applicable unit pollution load. Because of high runoff coefficient and short travel time to drainage. first flush occurred clearly. Average EMCs of runoff in the highway was investigated as TSS 108.47 mg / L, COD 28.16 mg / L, BOD 13.61 mg / L, TN 6.38 mg / L, TP 0.03 mg / L, Cu 118.17 / L, Pb 345.3 / L, Zn 349.47 / L. Unit pollution loads calculated by detailed land use area of highways based on average annual rainfall, EMCs, applicable basin areas and etc. were 46.6 kg/km2/day of BOD, 1.4 kg/km2/day of TP, 8.81 kg / km2/day of TN and these were BOD 50.8%, TP 66.7%, TN 64.4%in comparison of the unit pollution loads which applies fallow land standards of the TMDL(Total Maximum Daily Load). It was considered that discharged loads can be excessively calculated in case highway non-point management plans based on unit pollution load of the current land standard.

This study analyzed influence factors and the correlation among pollutants which affect occurrence of leaked pollution based on the long-term runoff flow and water quality investigation results to understand the characteristics of highway rainfall runoff pollution load. According to the result of correlation analysis on TSS (Total Suspended Solid) concentration, anteceded dry days, rainfall intensity, traffic volume and etc. as major influence factors of highway rainfall runoff pollution loads, the correlations were weak or scarce in most items. These results might be attributed that runoff pollutant concentration changes vary severely on changes of rainfall intensity and rainfall duration within rainfall and it is affected by disturbances of vehicles and street cleaning and etc. as characteristics of the highway. While Cu, Fe and Zn which are discharged with high concentrations out of heavy metals showed high correlation with particulate matter, organic matter(COD), nutrient(TN, TP), Ni and Pb showed relatively low correlation in a correlation evaluation by pollutant. Significant correlation with traffic volumes was not shown and TSS concentration even decreased in accordance with increase of the traffic volume. In the comparison with precedent studies, it was considered necessary additional analysis of the effects of rainfall section analysis, road type, disturbances of surface contaminants by vehicles, rainfall and climate conditions, surrounding terrains etc.

The stormwater runoff from road or expressway is known as one of important nonpoint pollution sources. To reduce the pollutants discharge from road or expressway, many best management practices(BMPs) have been applied and planned. Among the BMPs, road sweeping can be effective way to prevent pollutant washoff to environment. This study is performed to evaluate the characteristics of particles collected from the road by sweeping car. Size distribution and pollutant concentration of particles were analyzed. Based on the pollutant concentration and the specification of road such as length, width, and unit for pollutant generation, total amount of pollutant to be removed by road sweeping was estimated. Most of sediments collected by road sweeping was classified into sandy soil and fraction of fine grained soil was low. Although the concentrations of pollutants such as heavy metals in road sediments did not exceed the soil contamination criteria, washout of pollutants during sweeping work by spraying water might cause leaching of pollutants contained in sediments and thus resulted in low pollutant concentrations. Reduced amounts of pollutant by road sweeping showed 31.4% TSS reduction for region and 7.7% TSS for region. Other pollutants showed low reduction rate, because of their leaching by water spraying. Results from this study indicate that detailed and well-planned investigation for the road sweeping is necessary for the accurate estimation of pollutant reduction from road or expressway.

Highways are stormwater-intensive land uses, since they are impervious and have high pollutant mass emissions from vehicular activity. Vehicle emissions include pollutants such as heavy metals, oil and grease, particulates from sources such as fuels, brake pad wear, tire wear, and litter. The presence of heavy metals in highway stormwater runoff is of concern, as they are very toxic due to enhanced bioavailability, and have the potential not to degrade in the environment. Therefore, this research was carried out to understand the characteristics of metal pollutants in stormwater runoff from highways in Korea and to treat that runoff using zeolite filtration. The filtration facility was constructed on Korea Highway number 251 (Gaeryong I/C). The facility was operated during storms with durations of 0.3–4.8 h, and the influent treatment rate was varied from 3.60 to 17.34 m3/day. The first flush phenomenon for metal pollutants was observed in all of the storm events. The average removal efficiency was determ...

Adsorption of heavy metals by sawdust was investigated to evaluate the effectiveness of using sawdust to remove heavy metals from aqueous solutions. Kinetic and isotherm studies were carried out by considering the effects of initial concentration and pH. The adsorption isotherms of heavy metals fitted the Langmuir or Freundlich model reasonably well. The adsorption capacity of metal was in the order Pb 2+ Cu 2+ >Zn 2+ . A high concentration of co-existing ions such as CA 2+ and Mg 2+ depressed the adsorption of heavy metal. Adsorption data showed that metal adsorption on sawdust follows a pseudo-second-order reaction. Kinetic studies also indicated that both surface adsorption and intraparticle diffusion were involved in metal adsorption on sawdust. Column studies prove that sawdust could be effective biosorbent for the removal of heavy metals from aqueous phase.