Development and application of a fully integrated model for unsaturated-saturated nitrogen reactive transport

Abstract

This paper presents a fully integrated model to simulate coupled unsaturated-saturated flow and reactive transport of ammonium and nitrate, the two major nitrogen species. Based on our previous work of developing a coupled model of unsaturated-saturated flow and solute transport of a single species, the key contribution of this study is to develop a new mathematical model and the new computer code for a comprehensive list of biogeochemical reactions, which are necessary for simulating nitrogen reactive transport. The computer code is verified by comparing its simulated results with those obtained using another model for a synthetic case. Model calibration and validation are conducted for two real-world cases to simulate nitrogen reactive transport. The two cases are at the experimental plot scale with the sewage water irrigation and at the field scale with the septic tank effluent infiltration, respectively. Quantitative evaluation of the numerical modeling results indicates that the new model and computer code can accurately simulate field observations of moisture content, water table elevation, and nitrogen concentration. For example, the root mean square error for simulating moisture content can be as small as 0.01. The code is computationally efficient to capture spatial and temporal trends of nitrogen concentrations at the field scale with a large number of computational nodes and time steps. The fully integrated model is a promising tool for large-scale modeling of water flow and nitrogen transformation and transport under complex conditions in agricultural and urban environments.