ABSTRACT:
Nitrate-nitrogen (nitrate-N) losses to groundwater from septic systems, forests, home lawns, and urea- and manure-fertilized silage corn were quantified and compared during a 2-year study. The septic system and all silage corn treatments had annual flow-weighted concentrations of nitrate-N in excess of 10 mg/l for at least 1 of the 2 years. In contrast, forest and both fertilized and unfertilized home lawn treatments generated flow-weighted nitrate-N concentrations of less than 1.7 mg/l. Annual losses ranged from greater than 70 kg/ha of nitrate-N from silage com treatments to less than 1.5 kg/ha from unfertilized home lawns and forest. The results demonstrate the importance of unfertilized land use types in maintaining aquifer water quality; they also suggest that replacing production agriculture with unsewered residential development will not markedly reduce nitrate-N losses to groundwater.
Footnotes
Arthur J. Gold is an associate professor and William R. DeRagon is a research associate in the Department of Natural Resources Science, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, 02881; W. Michael Sullivan is an associate professor in the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Rhode Island, and Jerrell L. Lemunyon is the National Water Quality Technology Development Staff agronomist with the Soil Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Fort Worth, Texas 76115. The research reported here was supported by cooperative agreement 69-1106-5-192 with the Soil Conservation Service. This paper is Contribution No. 2531 of the College of Resource Development, University of Rhode Island, with support from the Rhode Island Agricultural Experiment Station. We thank Stephen Davis, Joseph McClory, David Warren, and John Bartlett for their support and assistance throughout this project. We dedicate this work to the memory of our colleague, Joan Heaton.
- Copyright 1990 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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