Statistical Analysis of Nitrate Movement through the Soil in Central Kansas

Abstract

An earlier investigation by the Kansas Geological Survey in central Kansas studied the movement of nitrate from fertilizer through soil into the groundwater. Nitrate concentrations in soil water were measured on samples collected at three locations during a three-year span, from sets of lysimeters buried at different depths. Although patterns seemed apparent in the resulting measurements, no statistical analyses were performed to test their significance; this re-study of the data uses analyses of variance to test for differences in nitrate concentration attributable to time and to depth in the soil. The mean nitrate concentration of samples collected in the first year of the experiment was significantly higher than the means of second and third year samples at all three locations, perhaps reflecting the confounding influence of a previous flooding experiment. ANOVAs of depth across years determined few significant differences in nitrate concentration with depth. The wintertime gap in measurements and unequal sampling through time precludes formal time-series analyses, but graphs of concentration versus time show that peak concentration occurs at later times with increasing depth, and that maximum concentration decreases with depth. These statistical analyses support the conclusions from the original investigation.