Water, soil and chemical losses: field experiments and model analysis

Abstract

The study of the environmental impact of water erosion, chemicals and nutrient transport by runoff water is very important to protect soil and water quality. It is possible to find much literature on this topic, but the survey data lack uniformity and represent many different agronomic or natural environments. This is due to the wide range of parameters involved in these phenomena, such as soil and geomorphologic characteristics, tillage and crop management, nutrients and pesticides used. Results of some experiments are presented in this paper. A comparison of water, soil and chemical losses has been made between experimental data and modeling outputs, both at plot and at watershed scale. The findings indicate that monitoring and modeling are two complementary instruments, both necessary for the analysis of agrochemical transport phenomena, and that the proposed methodology is useful to evaluate the related environmental impact under different scenarios.