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The actual denitrification values for the lower organic carbon values (OC 0.60 – 2.90 %)
are within the range predicted by the Monte Carlo simulation. The actual denitrification
rate for the higher organic carbon (> 2.90%) values lie outside the range predicted by the
Monte Carlo analysis. Once again, the errors in many cases are over a 1000% and this
makes the simulations unreliable.
3.3. Discussion and Summary
For all three categories the denitrification rates are within the predicted range for the
lower OC values but outside the range for higher OC values. At an OC value of about
2.95 % there seems to be a distinct change in the Minimum/Maximum range in all three
categories. This is probably an artifact of the way the data is chosen. The errors are
however too large to be of any practical use. There is no definitive conclusion that can be
drawn from the three sets of results. Should the denitrification rate be solely dependent
on the organic carbon content, all of the actual measured values used in the Monte Carlo
analysis should lie within the range of the generated denitrification rate values. While this
is the case only for a small amount denitrification rates it is consistent in all three Monte
Carlo analyses. The analysis while not entirely successful does nevertheless point to the
veracity that other factors play an important role in the rate of denitrification.
It may be ephemerally possible that the number of denitrification values generated is
insufficient and hence does not capture the entire range of possible denitrification rates
for a given organic carbon. However, given the large number of values generated this is
highly unlikely and we can be sufficiently certain that the results are representative of the
population. In addition increasing the number of generated values by a factor of 100 does
not yield any significant improvement. Keeping in mind that the Monte Carlo simulations
and analysis are based only on organic carbon it is necessary to develop a method that is
capable of estimating the denitrification rate based on all the controlling factors.
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