| Title: | Assessment of nutrient entry pathways and dominating hydrological processes in lowland catchments |
| Authors: | Schmalz, B., F. Tavares and N. Fohrer |
| Year: | 2007 |
| Journal: | Advances in Geosciences |
| Volume (Issue): | 11 |
| Pages: | 107-112 |
| Article ID: | |
| DOI: | 10.5194/adgeo-11-107-2007 |
| URL (non-DOI journals): | |
| Model: | SWAT |
| Broad Application Category: | hydrologic only |
| Primary Application Category: | hydrologic assessment |
| Secondary Application Category: | calibration, sensitivity, and/or uncertainty analysis |
| Watershed Description: | 517 km^2 Treene River and 50 km^2 Kielstau River subwatershed, which are located in a lowland area of the Staet of Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany. |
| Calibration Summary: | |
| Validation Summary: | |
| General Comments: | |
| Abstract: | The achievement of a good water quality in all
water bodies until 2015 is legally regulated since December
2000 for all European Union member states by the European
Water Framework Directive (EU, 2000). The aim of
this project is to detect nutrient entry pathways and to assess
the dominating hydrological processes in complex mesoscale
catchments.
The investigated Treene catchment is located in Northern
Germany as a part of a lowland area. Sandy, loamy and
peat soils are characteristic for this area. Land use is dominated
by agriculture and pasture. Drainage changed the natural
water balance. In a nested approach we examined two
catchment areas: a) Treene catchment 517 km^2, b) Kielstau
catchment 50 km^2. The nested approach assists to improve
the process understanding by using data of different scales.
Therefore these catchments serve not only as an example but
the results are transferable to other lowland catchment areas.
In a first step the river basin scale model SWAT (Soil and
Water Assessment Tool, Arnold et al., 1998) was used successfully
to model the water balance. Furthermore the water
quality was analysed to distinguish the impact of point
and diffuse sources. The results show that the tributaries in
the Kielstau catchment contribute high amounts of nutrients,
mainly nitrate and ammonium. For the parameters nitrate,
ammonium and phosphorus it was observed as a tendency
that the annual loads were increasing along the river profile
of the Kielstau. |
| Language: | English |
| Keywords: | |