Effect of preferential transport and coherent denitrification on leaching of nitrate to drainage

Abstract. To protect the quality of the aquatic environment, it is imperative to be able to assess the leaching of nitrate through various hydrogeological settings. Numerical model concepts have been developed in order to describe this leaching and possible routes of nitrogen at field scale, often without being evaluated in regard to their ability to account for dominant preferential transport and coherent denitrification, which is the rule rather than the exception in soils. This study evaluates whether it is possible to describe 10-years of nitrate concentrations, measured in drainage from a tile-drained agricultural clay till field in Denmark, by applying the soil-plant-atmosphere model DAISY, capable of accounting for preferential transport and denitrification. A DAISY model concept, including macropores capable of capturing the water and bromide balance of the field within this specific timeframe, was able to predict the water transport to drainage, dry matter and N-yield of the harvested crops, while it was unable, with the standard default denitrification model, to predict dynamics and quantity of N-loss to drainage. This was caused by a fast saturation of the plow layer, where nitrate seemed to be denitrified almost instantly, and no surplus nitrate remained to be transported to the drainage. To circumvent this and describe the measured N-loss, modification to the water reduction function affecting denitrification was conducted. The denitrification had to be reduced by approximately 50 % from a seasonal average of 75 kg N ha−1 to 35 kg N ha−1 while 48 % to 80 % of the total N-loss to drainage had to be preferentially transported from the plow layer. This study, therefore, reveals that, by not accounting for preferential transport and coherent denitrification, there is a high risk of underestimating leaching of nitrate to the aquatic environment.