Abstract
The transport of animal waste pathogens from crop land to streams can potentially elevate pathogen levels in stream water. Applying animal manure into crop land as fertilizers is a common practice in developing as well as in developed countries. Manure application into the crop land, however, can cause potential human health. To control pathogen levels in ambient water bodies such as streams, improving our understanding of pathogen transport at farm scale as well as at watershed scale is required. To understand the impacts of crop land receiving animal waste as fertilizers on stream's pathogen levels, here we investigate pathogen indicator transport at watershed scale. We exploited watershed scale hydrological model to estimate the transport of pathogens from the crop land to streams. Pathogen indicator levels (i.e., E. coli levels) in the stream water were predicted. With certain assumptions, model results are reasonable. This study can be used as guidelines for developing the models for calculating the impacts of crop land's animal manure on stream water.
Highlights
Bacterial pollution in stream water is a major concern [1]
The objective of this paper is to describe briefly input data, model, processes, simulation approaches required for implementing the Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model and predicting stream bacteria levels
Implementation and application of SWAT model for predicting the bacteria concentrations is described elsewhere [8, 9, 15]. The input parameters such as manure application rate, crop land receiving manure, crop rotation, land cover, erosion rate, and particle attached and non- particle attached bacteria are used in the SWAT to estimate bacteria loading into the streams
Summary
Bacterial pollution in stream water is a major concern [1]. For example, more than 50% of the assessed streams and rivers in the U.S are impaired, and elevated pathogen/pathogen indicator levels are the leading cause of impairment [1]. Agricultural non-point source pollution, animal waste in cropping land has a potential to elevate pathogen levels in stream water [2]. More than 238,000 CAFOs in the U.S produces more than 317 million gallons manure annually, managing such a huge quantity of manure can be a daunting task. Events such as rainfall after manure application in cropping land produces runoff, which can transport a large number of pathogens from farms to streams. Events such as accidental spill from CAFOs can transport a large number of pathogens from CAFOs locations to streams [3, 4, 5, 6]
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