Articles | Volume 21, issue 7
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3811-2017
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-3811-2017
Research article
 | 
26 Jul 2017
Research article |  | 26 Jul 2017

Modeling nitrate from land surface to wells' perforations under agricultural land: success, failure, and future scenarios in a Mediterranean case study

Yehuda Levy, Roi H. Shapira, Benny Chefetz, and Daniel Kurtzman
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Short summary
Nitrate–nitrogen is a groundwater contaminant worldwide that originates commonly from agricultural fertilization. In this work, we built a computer model which follows the fate of nitrogen from land surface to deep (~100 m) and distant (~km) groundwater wells. The model succeeded estimating total groundwater nitrate, yet failed to point-estimate contaminated wells, extra assumptions fixed it. This enabled prediction of future groundwater–nitrate which revealed the need to reduce fertilization.