Integrated Use of GLEAMS and GIS to Prevent Groundwater Pollution Caused by Agricultural Disposal of Animal Waste

/ In modern intensive animal farming the disposal of a large amount of waste is of great concern, as, if not properly performed, it can cause the pollution of water, mainly because of the high content of nitrate and phosphate. This paper presents the results of a study intended to assess the environmental sustainability of animal waste disposal on agricultural soils in the alluvial plain of the River Chiana (Tuscany, Italy), a particularly sensitive area because of the high vulnerability of the shallow aquifer and of the intensive agricultural and breeding activities. With this aim, a strategy has been employed, that consists of the integrated use of a management model and GISs. The consequences on groundwater of applying animal waste to different kind of soils and crop arrangements have been simulated by means of the management model GLEAMS (Groundwater Loading Effects of Agricultural Management Systems, ver 2.01). As the huge amount of data required by such a sophisticated model does not allow applications at a scale larger than the field size, IDRISI and GRASS GIS packages have been used to divide the study area into land units, with homogeneous environmental characteristics, and then to generalize on these units the outputs of the model. The main conclusions can be synthesized as follows: The amount of animal waste produced in some of the investigated areas (i.e., municipal territory) is greater than that disposable on their own agricultural soil with no risks to the groundwater; consequently a cooperative approach among municipalities is necessary in order to plan waste disposal in a comprehensive and centralized way.KEY WORDS: Land use; Animal waste disposal; Groundwater protection; GIS, Management models     

SELECTED CHALLENGES IN RUNOFF GENERATION RESEARCH IN FORESTS FROM THE HILLSLOPE TO HEADWATER DRAINAGE BASIN SCALE1

ABSTRACT: When faced with practical forest land management issues such as the impacts of logging or forest conversion to other land uses, planners ideally require a comprehensive understanding of within drainage basin hydrological processes to determine the most vulnerable areas to increased storm runoff and erosion. Land managers in particular need to know the source areas and magnitude of inputs to the storm hydrograph, in terms of water quantity, sediment and solute transport; and the routing of such hydrographs from headwater to larger drainage basins. The latter includes an overall assessment at various scales of the impacts of forest disturbance and conversion on the water balance. This paper will focus on runoff generation in terms of identifying the various pathways and source areas. Such aspects will be linked with the need for a more comprehensive effort towards the field testing of so-called ‘physically based’ models of runoff generation. Some of the controversial issues arising from the difficulties in reconciling results from hydrochemical investigations with complementary hydrometric studies will be highlighted. Subsequently, attention will be given to topographic-wetness models, which have promising applications in forestland management. In addition, alternative simple models for application at the catchment scale will be assessed. The latter is in recognition that at smaller scales, heterogeneity both in time and space of soil hydraulic properties demand a greater number of parameters in modelling. Such considerations can even prove an obstacle in terms of the confident application of ‘physically based’ models.     

A SIMULATION OF RIVER-BASIN RESPONSE TO MESOSCALE METEOROLOGICAL FORCING: THE SUSQUEHANNA RIVER BASIN EXPERIMENT (SRBEX)1

ABSTRACT: A mesoscale meteorological model, a surface hydrology model, and a ground-water hydrology model are linked to simulate the hydrographic response of a large river basin to a single storm. Synoptic climatology is employed to choose a representative hydro-climatic event. The mesoscale meteorological model uses three nested domains to simulate relatively high-resolution precipitation over a sub-basin of the Susquehanna River Basin. The hydrology models simulate surface runoff and ground-water baseflow using both analyzed and simulated precipitation. The hydrologic abstractions are handled using both Curve Number and Green-Ampt routines. To support the linkage of the numerical models, special attention is given to data resampling and reprojection. The mesoscale meteorological model simulation captures the spatial and temporal structure of the storm event, while the hydrology models represent the timing of the event well. The Curve Number method generates a realistic hydrograph with both analyzed and simulated precipitation. In contrast, the hydrographic response generated by the Green-Ampt routine is inferior. Several interrelated factors contribute to these results, including: the nature of the precipitation event chosen for the experiment; the tendency of the mesoscale meteorological model to underpredict low intensity, widespread precipitation in this case; and the influence of the surface soil-texture characteristics on infiltration rates.     

CRITICAL DATA REQUIREMENTS FOR PREDICTION OF EROSION AND SEDIMENTATION IN MOUNTAIN DRAINAGE BASINS1

ABSTRACT: The potential for understanding and, where necessary, managing sedimentation in humid mountain drainage basins increases with awareness of the conditions that lead to shallow landsliding, debris flows, and catastrophic sedimentation in stream channels. Progress in understanding has involved: improved recognition of source areas and the potential for downstream effects of slope failure; improved understanding of hydrological conditions required for failure; and a general theory of slope stability in shallow colluvium, including the role of plants, fires, timber harvest, and other disturbances. The theory acknowledges spatial variability in topographic and geotechnical terrain characteristics, the stochastic nature of climatic triggering events such as forest fires and rainstorms, and the integrating nature of channel networks in modulating the cumulative effects of transient processes within a basin. Anthropogenic fire regimes, road effects, and timber harvest can readily be included. Continued application and modification of the theory over an expanded geographical range require improvements in field data and their systematic storage in spatial databases. Improvements in digital topographic data for mountain basins, systematic network-wide surveys of channel conditions, and new technology for rapid documentation of soil depths in landslide source areas would enhance the prediction of mass failure, its consequences for channel habitat, and the basin-wide or regional distribution of hillslope and channel conditions. Computations of the probabilities of transient effects throughout basins could then form the basis of ecological risk analyses. Large-scale spatial data sets of a few critical variables are required before this next level of understanding can be developed and applied to sedimentation impacts on ecosystems and other resources.     

A Multimedia Chemical Fate Model with Time-Dependent Air-Water Transfer Rates

A multimedia model for the temporal evolution of the concentration of chemical species in a water basin and its bottom sediment layer has been tested with time-dependent air-water transfer rates varying with the meteorological conditions over the basin. The multimedia model uses the chemical fugacity approach in a system of two ordinary differential equations for the chemical species partition in the two mentioned media, with transfer through the sediment-water and the air-water interfaces. The air-water transfer rates are estimated by a micrometeorological preprocessor. A scenario in which known concentrations in air of a soluble pollutant (benzene) induce water and sediment pollution is tested on both synthetic (MonteCarlo-simulated) and real series of meteorological data. It is found that the use of time-dependent transfer coefficients affects not only the relaxation time, but also the long term concentration of the pollutant in water and sediment, that differs between 10 and 40% in the examined cases when compared with the same multimedia model using average constant transfer rates as usual. This is shown to be due to the statistical correlations between meteorological parameters and air pollutant concentrations, which stresses the advantages of a time-dependent estimation of the transfer coefficients. Correction terms are proposed to take into account the correlation effects when a constant parameters multimedia model is used.     

3 forest simulation model

The 3 forest simulation model is a process model of tree growth, carbon and nitrogen dynamics in a single-species, even-aged forest stand. It is based on the model. Major changes include the computation of sun angle and radiation as a function of latitude and day of the year, the closed-form integration of canopy production as a function of day and hour, the introduction of tree number, height, and diameter as separate state variables, and different growth strategies, mortalities, and resulting self-thinning as function of crowding competition.The tree/soil system is described by a set of nonlinear ordinary differential equations for the state variables: tree number, base diameter, tree height, wood biomass, nitrogen in wood, leaf mass, fine root mass, fruit biomass, assimilate, carbon and nitrogen in litter, carbon and nitrogen in soil organic matter, and plant-available nitrogen. The model includes explicit formulations of all relevant ecophysiological processes such as: computation of radiation as a function of seasonal time, daytime and cloudiness, light attenuation in the canopy, and canopy photosynthesis as function of latitude, seasonal time, and daytime, respiration of all parts, assimilate allocation, increment formation, nitrogen fixation, mineralization, humification and leaching, forest management (thinning, felling, litter removal, fertilization etc.), temperature effects on respiration and decomposition, and environmental effects (pollution damage to photosynthesis, leaves, and fine roots). Only ecophysiological parameters which can be either directly measured or estimated with reasonable certainty are used. 3 is a generic process model which requires species- and site-specific parametrization. It can be applied to deciduous and coniferous forests under tropical, as well as temperate or boreal conditions.The paper presents a full documentation of the mathematical model as well as representative simulation results for spruce and acacia.     

Evolutionarily stable strategies of age-dependent sexual advertisement

In various models of sexual selection mediated by the viability indicator (“good genes”) mechanism, a sexually selected trait will truly reflect male quality if its expression is costly for the male. However, in long-lived species, the expression of a trait often increases with age while the genotype of the male remains unchanged. This fact may obscure the indicator mechanism. Hitherto, game theory models of honesty in sexual advertisement have not taken life-history effects into account, whereas life-history models of reproductive effort have only seldom considered the dependence of mating success on the actions of other individuals. Here, the two approaches are combined, and I examine whether honesty is maintained if males can divide their advertisement effort over their lifetime. The model shows that an increase in the expression of the sexually selected trait over several years is an evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) under a wide range of situations, so that a correlated preference for old age can emerge through a viability indicator mechanism. Honesty in the strict sense is not preserved: an optimally behaving low-quality male will in some cases advertise more than a high-quality male of equal age, to the extent that the strongest advertisement found in the population can be associated with a low-quality male. Due to life-history trade-offs, however, honesty in an average sense holds true over the lifetime of individuals: “cheater” age classes will remain small enough, that a female will obtain a higher expected mate quality if she trusts in the trait as an indicator of viability. Received: 25 June 1996 / Accepted after revision: 15 April 1997     

Metapopulation dynamics of a perennial plant, Succisa pratensis, in an agricultural landscape

Most metapopulation models neglect the local dynamics, and systems characterized by slow population turnover, time lags and non-equilibrium, are only rarely examined within a metapopulation context. In this study we used a realistic, spatially explicit, dynamic metapopulation model of a long-lived grassland plant, Succisa pratensis, to examine the relative importance of local population dynamics, and short and long-distance dispersal of seeds.