Indian Institute of Technology Delhi

Centre for Energy Studies

2019 – 2020 (II Semester)

ESL 710: Energy, Ecology and Environment

Tutorial Sheet - 2

1. A stream flowing at a rate of 10.0 m3/s has a tributary feeding into it with a flow of 5.0 m3/s.
The stream's concentration of chloride upstream of the junction is 20.0 mg/lt, and the
tributary chloride concentration is 40 mg/lt. Treating chloride as a conservative substance and
assuming complete mixing of the two streams, find the downstream chloride concentration.
2. Every year, herons, seagulls, eagles and other birds mass along a 4.75 km stretch of stream
connecting a lake to the ocean to catch the fingerling salmon as they migrate downstream to
the sea. The birds are efficient fishermen and will consume 10,000 fingerlings per kilometre
of stream each hour regardless of the number of salmon in the stream. In other words, there
are enough salmon; the birds are only limiter by how fast they can catch and eat the fish, The
stream's average cross-sectional area is 20 m2, and the salmon move downstream with the
stream's flow rate of 700 m3/min. If there are 7 fingerlings per m3 in the water entering the
stream, what is the concentration of salmon that reach the ocean when the birds are feeding?
3. A lagoon is designed to accommodate an input flow of 0. 1 m3/s of a non-conservative
pollutant with concentration 30 mg/lt. and reaction rate constant of 0.2 per day. The effluent
from the lagoon must have a pollutant concentration of less than l0 mg/lt. assuming that
complete mixing takes place, how large must the lagoon be?
4. A two-pond system, given in the figure below, is fed by a stream with flow rate of 1 million
gallons per day (MGD) and a non-conservative pollutant (BOD) with a concentration 20 mg/lt.
The rate of decay of the BOD is 0.3 per day. The volume of the first pond is 5 million gallons
(MG) and the second is 3 million gallons. Assuming complete mixing within each pond, find
the BOD concentration leaving each pond.

5. A creek carries 5.0 m3/s of water with a selenium (Se) concentration of 0.0015 mg/L. A farmer starts
withdrawing 1 .0 m3/s of the creek-water to irrigate the land. During irrigation, the wafer picks up
selenium from the salts in the soil. One half of the irrigation water is lost to the ground and plants and
the other half is returned to the creek. The irrigation runoff to the creek contains 1 mg/L. Selenium is a
conservative non-reactive substance and the stream does not pick up more selenium from any other
source.
i. If the farmer irrigates continuously, what will be the steady state concentration of selenium in
the stream downstream from the farm (after the irrigation run-off returns to the stream)?
ii. Fish are sensitive to selenium levels over 0.04 mg/L. The farmer agrees not to use more water than
will keep the stream selenium level below this critical concentration. How much water can the
farmer withdraw from the stream to use for irrigation?
6. Your stomach is a chemical reactor. When you devour a fast food special hamburger in about
a minute, it acts like an instantaneous input of 325 gms of fast food entering the stomach. In
response the stomach starts producing gastric liquids (acids), which are continuously excreted
into the stomach at a rate of l2 mL/min as the hamburger is digested. The fluid also leaves the
stomach to the small intestine at a flow rate of 12 mL/min, so the volume of liquid in the
stomach stays constant at 1.15 L, the hamburger digestion rate is 1.33 per hour. What fraction
of the hamburger's mass will remain undigested in your stomach one hour after you eat the
ham burger?