RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 GIS-based modeling of non-point source pollutants in the vadose zone
JF Journal of Soil and Water Conservation
FD Soil and Water Conservation Society
SP 34
OP 38
VO 53
IS 1
A1 Dennis L. Corwin
A1 Keith Loague
A1 Timothy R. Ellsworth
YR 1998
UL http://www.jswconline.org/content/53/1/34.abstract
AB The information age of the 1990s is a global consciousness where scientific and technological advances are assumed capable of solving global environmental problems. A significant characteristic of nonpoint source (NPS) pollution problems is the lack of regard for political boundaries and physical barriers between cities, states, nations, and continents. The widespread nature of such environmental problems often results in an analogous diffuse acceptance of responsibility for resolution. Thus, an ability to accurately assess the present and future impact of human activities on the global ecosystem would provide a most powerful basis for environmental stewardship and guiding future human actions. To responsibly respond to impaired ecosystem functioning (i.e., with respect to such issues as climatic change, stratospheric ozone depletion, species diversification, erosion, deforestation, desertification, agricultural sustainability, and non-point source pollution), it is necessary to examine these issues not only from a multidisciplinary systems-based approach, but also with an approach that accounts for spatial and temporal context. The problems and philosophical issues of addressing NPS pollution is the vadose zone within a spatial and temporal context are presented.