Finite Element Simulation of Total Nitrogen Transport in Riparian Buffer in an Agricultural Watershed

Xiaosheng Lin, Jie Tang, Zhaoyang Li and Haiyi Li
Additional contact information
Xiaosheng Lin: Key Lab of Groundwater Resources and Environment, Ministry of Education, Jilin University, Changchun 130000, China
Jie Tang: Key Lab of Groundwater Resources and Environment, Ministry of Education, Jilin University, Changchun 130000, China
Zhaoyang Li: College of Environment and Resource, Jilin University, Changchun 130000, China
Haiyi Li: College of Environment and Resource, Jilin University, Changchun 130000, China

Sustainability, 2016, vol. 8, issue 3, 1-14

Abstract: Riparian buffers can influence water quality in downstream lakes or rivers by buffering non-point source pollution in upstream agricultural fields. With increasing nitrogen (N) pollution in small agricultural watersheds, a major function of riparian buffers is to retain N in the soil. A series of field experiments were conducted to monitor pollutant transport in riparian buffers of small watersheds, while numerical model-based analysis is scarce. In this study, we set up a field experiment to monitor the retention rates of total N in different widths of buffer strips and used a finite element model (HYDRUS 2D/3D) to simulate the total N transport in the riparian buffer of an agricultural non-point source polluted area in the Liaohe River basin. The field experiment retention rates for total N were 19.4%, 26.6%, 29.5%, and 42.9% in 1,3,4, and 6m-wide buffer strips, respectively. Throughout the simulation period, the concentration of total N of the 1mwide buffer strip reached a maximum of 1.27 mg/cm 3 at 30 min, decreasing before leveling off. The concentration of total N about the 3mwide buffer strip consistently increased, with a maximum of 1.05 mg/cm 3 observed at 60 min. Under rainfall infiltration, the buffer strips of different widths showed a retention effect on total N transport, and the optimum effect was simulated in the 6mwide buffer strip. A comparison between measured and simulated data revealed that finite element simulation could simulate N transport in the soil of riparian buffer strips.

Keywords: finite element model; rainfall infiltration; pollutant retention; numerical modeling; agricultural watershed (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/3/288/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/3/288/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:8:y:2016:i:3:p:288-:d:66209

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().