Modelling the impact of the agricultural holdings and land-use structure on the quality of inland and coastal waters with an innovative and interdisciplinary toolkit
2022
Dzierzbicka-Glowacka, Lidia | Dybowski, Dawid | Janecki, Maciej | Wojciechowska, Ewa | Szymczycha, Beata | Potrykus, Dawid | Nowicki, Artur | Szymkiewicz, Adam | Zima, Piotr | Jaworska-Szulc, Beata | Pietrzak, Stefan | Pazikowska-Sapota, Grażyna | Kalinowska, Dominika | Nawrot, Nicole | Wielgat, Paweł | Dembska, Grażyna | Matej-Łukowicz, Karolina | Szczepańska, Katarzyna | Puszkarczuk, Tadeusz
The changes taking place in the marine coastal zones are extremely important, as about 40% of the human population currently lives in the coastal areas (within 100 kilometres of the coastline) increasing anthropogenic pressure on the marine ecosystems. Agriculture is a significant source of nutrients to the marine environment that increase hypoxia, eutrophication and may pose a threat to the services provided by ecosystems. In particular, surface water and submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) are dominant pathways of nutrient loads. The main aim of this study is to present the capabilities and results of an innovative and complex toolkit that enables researchers to identify the sources of nutrient and pesticide pollution, calculate their flux via rivers and SGD, and directly assess the influence of pesticides and nutrient flux on the coastal ecosystem. We combined the in situ sampling of surface water, groundwater, soil, SGD, and seawater with a model study to create a set of tools for assessing the influence of agriculture on the marine environment. The maximum concentrations of nitrates and phosphates were measured in the drainage ditches and were equal to 15.5 mg N-NO3− L⁻¹ and 7.7 mg P-PO43− L⁻¹ respectively. The nutrients concentrations varied from 0.1 to 12.9 mg N-NO3− L⁻¹ and from 0.0 to 0.5 mg P-PO43− L⁻¹ in all freshwater samples. In contrast, the lowest concentrations were observed in seawater with maximum levels of 0.8 mg N-NO3− L⁻¹ and 0.1 mg P-PO43− L⁻¹ respectively. The collected data were used to establish an innovative and interdisciplinary online toolkit in which surface run-off was modelled with Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), groundwater flow with Modflow, and marine waters using the EcoPuckBay model. Additionally, the tool includes two interactive calculators for calculation of the nutrient balance and nitrogen leaching for single fields on farms.
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