Nitrate retention at the river–watershed interface: a new conceptual modeling approach

Denitrification in riparian wetlands plays a major role in eliminating nitrate coming from agricultural watershed uplands before they reach river water. A new approach was developed for representing this process in the biogeochemical Riverstrahler model, using a single adjustable parameter represent...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biogeochemistry 2018-06, Vol.139 (1), p.31-51
Main Authors: Billen, Gilles, Ramarson, Antsiva, Thieu, Vincent, Théry, Sylvain, Silvestre, Marie, Pasquier, Catherine, Hénault, Catherine, Garnier, Josette
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural watersheds
Biogeochemistry
Biogeosciences
Denitrification
Drainage patterns
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Ecosystems
Environmental Chemistry
Geochemistry
Land use
Leaching
Life Sciences
Modelling
Nitrates
Nitrogen
ORIGINAL PAPERS
River water
Rivers
Sciences of the Universe
Seasonal variation
Seasonal variations
Soil
Wetlands
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Summary:Denitrification in riparian wetlands plays a major role in eliminating nitrate coming from agricultural watershed uplands before they reach river water. A new approach was developed for representing this process in the biogeochemical Riverstrahler model, using a single adjustable parameter representing the potential denitrification rate of wetland soils. Applied to the case of three watersheds with contrasting size, land-use and hydro-climatic regime, namely the Seine and the Loir rivers (France) and the Red River (Vietnam), this new model is able to capture the general level of nitrate concentrations as well as their seasonal variations everywhere over the drainage network. The nitrogen budgets calculated from the results show that riparian denitrification eliminates between 10 and 50% of the diffuse sources of nitrogen into the hydrosystem coming from soil nitrate leaching.
ISSN:0168-2563
1573-515X
DOI:10.1007/s10533-018-0455-9