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Simulated long-term nitrogen losses for a midwestern agricultural watershed in the United States

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  • Gowda, Prasanna H.
  • Mulla, David J.
  • Jaynes, Dan B.

Abstract

Adequate knowledge on the movement of nutrients under various agricultural practices is essential for developing remedial measures to reduce nonpoint source pollution. Mathematical models, after extensive calibration and validation, are useful to derive such knowledge and to identify site-specific alternative agricultural management practices. A spatial-process model that uses GIS and ADAPT, a field scale daily time-step continuous water table management model, was calibrated and validated for flow and nitrate-N discharges from a 365 ha agricultural watershed in central Iowa, in the Midwestern United States. This watershed was monitored for nitrate-N losses from 1991 to 1997. Spatial patterns in crops, topography, fertilizer applications and climate were used as input to drive the model. The first half of the monitored data was used for calibration and the other half was used in validation of the model. For the calibration period, the observed and predicted flow and nitrate-N discharges were in excellent agreement with r2 values of 0.88 and 0.74, respectively. During the validation period, the observed and predicted flow and nitrate-N discharges were in good agreement with r2 values of 0.71 and 0.50, respectively. For all 6 years of data, the observed annual nitrate-N losses of 26 kg ha-1 for the entire simulation were in excellent agreement with predicted nitrate-N losses of 24.2 kg ha-1. The calibrated model was used to investigate the long-term impacts of nitrate-N losses to changes in the rate and timing of fertilizer application. Results indicate that nitrate-N losses were sensitive to rate and timing of fertilizer application. Modeled annual nitrate-N losses showed a 17% reduction in nitrate-N losses by reducing the fertilizer application rate by 20% and switching the application timing from fall to spring. Further reductions in nitrate-N losses require conversion of row cropland to pasture and/or replacement of continuous corn or corn-soybean rotation systems with alternative crops.

Suggested Citation

  • Gowda, Prasanna H. & Mulla, David J. & Jaynes, Dan B., 2008. "Simulated long-term nitrogen losses for a midwestern agricultural watershed in the United States," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 95(5), pages 616-624, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:95:y:2008:i:5:p:616-624
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Richard B. Alexander & Richard A. Smith & Gregory E. Schwarz, 2000. "Effect of stream channel size on the delivery of nitrogen to the Gulf of Mexico," Nature, Nature, vol. 403(6771), pages 758-761, February.
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    1. Weber, Jeremy G. & Key, Nigel & O'Donoghue, Erik J., 2015. "Does Federal Crop Insurance Encourage Farm Specialization and Fertilizer and Chemical Use?," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 204972, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. Hendricks, Nathan P. & Sinnathamby, Sumathy & Douglas-Mankin, Kyle & Smith, Aaron & Sumner, Daniel A. & Earnhart, Dietrich H., 2014. "The environmental effects of crop price increases: Nitrogen losses in the U.S. Corn Belt," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 507-526.
    3. Ping Li & Nina Omani & Indrajeet Chaubey & Xiaomei Wei, 2017. "Evaluation of Drought Implications on Ecosystem Services: Freshwater Provisioning and Food Provisioning in the Upper Mississippi River Basin," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-23, May.
    4. Paudel, Jayash & Crago, Christine L., 2018. "Fertilizer Use and Water Quality in the United States," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274312, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. Shailendra Singh & Soonho Hwang & Jeffrey G. Arnold & Rabin Bhattarai, 2023. "Evaluation of Agricultural BMPs’ Impact on Water Quality and Crop Production Using SWAT+ Model," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-16, July.
    6. Ale, Srinivasulu & Gowda, Prasanna H. & Mulla, David J. & Moriasi, Daniel N. & Youssef, Mohamed A., 2013. "Comparison of the performances of DRAINMOD-NII and ADAPT models in simulating nitrate losses from subsurface drainage systems," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 21-30.
    7. Jeremy G. Weber & Nigel Key & Erik O’Donoghue, 2016. "Does Federal Crop Insurance Make Environmental Externalities from Agriculture Worse?," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(3), pages 707-742.
    8. Ouyang, Wei & Wang, Xuelei & Hao, Fanghua & Srinivasan, R., 2009. "Temporal-spatial dynamics of vegetation variation on non-point source nutrient pollution," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 220(20), pages 2702-2713.
    9. Jayash Paudel & Christine L. Crago, 2021. "Environmental Externalities from Agriculture: Evidence from Water Quality in the United States," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 103(1), pages 185-210, January.

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