Modeling removal of bacteriophages MS2 and PRD1 by dune recharge at Castricum, Netherlands

Removal of model viruses by dune recharge was studied at a field site in the dune area of Castricum, Netherlands. Recharge water was dosed with bacteriophages MS2 and PRD1 for 11 days at a constant concentration in a 10‐ by 15‐m compartment that was isolated in a recharge basin. Breakthrough was monitored for 120 days at six wells with their screens along a flow line. Concentrations of both phages were reduced about 3 log 10 within the first 2.4 m and another 5 log 10 in a linear fashion within the following 27 m. A model accounting for one‐site kinetic attachment as well as first‐order inactivation was employed to simulate the bacteriophage breakthrough curves. The major removal process was found to be attachment of the bacteriophages. Detachment was very slow. After passage of the pulse of dosed bacteriophages, there was a long tail whose slope corresponds to the inactivation rate coefficient of 0.07–0.09 day −1 for attached bacteriophages. The end of the rising and the start of the declining limbs of the breakthrough curves could not be simulated completely, probably because of an as yet unknown process.