Project description
Nitrogen is naturally removed in the subsurface
When the farmer grows his crops, more nitrogen is applied than the plants can absorb to obtain high crop yields. The surplus of nitrogen can be leached from the root zone in the fields and can end in the aquatic environment.
However, on its way through the subsurface, part of the nitrogen is naturally removed by biogeochemical processes. Depending on the geochemical composition and the pathways of the water in the subsurface, larger or smaller parts of the nitrogen are actually removed and thus do not end up in our aquatic environment.
Development of a mapping concept
The project will develop geophysical, hydrogeological and geochemical mapping technologies and a comprehensive concept for mapping the subsurface. The concept can be used to determine the ability of the subsurface under a single field to remove nitrogen so that it does not end up in the aquatic environment .
The project will utilise promising results from the Innovation Fund project rOPEN and other relevant projects.Likewise, the project will create synergy with the Danish National Environmental Monitoring Program, as several of the agricultural monitoring areas will be investigated. We use the long time series of water quality data to validate the methods in MapField. In addition, there is synergy with a number of other projects developing mitigation measures to reduce nitrogen in the aquatic environment. Here we will demonstrate that the MapField methods can be used to select and place instruments optimally in landscape as catch crops, mini wetlands etc.