Water Stewardship Information Sources

ID 2015
Citation Zhu, Z, Broersma, K and Mazumder, A. 2012. Impacts of land use, fertilizer and manure application on the stream nutrient loadings in the Salmon River watershed, south-central British Columbia, Canada. Journal of Environmental Protection 3:809-822.
Organization UVIC
URL http://web.uvic.ca/water/publications/Zhu%20et%20al.%20JEP%202012.pdf
Abstract/Description or Keywords Manure and fertilizer applications can increase soil productivity and land economic values, but the controversial result
can be a decline of water quality due to the increased nutrient exports from soils to the streams. The impacts of landuse,
manure and fertilizer application on nutrient exports from soils to the streams were analyzed using the SWAT (Soil
Water Assessment Tool) model for the Salmon River watershed in south-central British Columbia, Canada. The results
showed that the animal farms had the highest rates of nutrient exports from soils to the streams and the natural forested
lands had the lowest. It was estimated that the whole Salmon River watershed would export approximately 11.52 tᄋyr?1
of organic nitrogen (ON), 8.05 tᄋyr?1
of nitrate nitrogen (NO3-N), 2.30 tᄋyr?1
of organic phosphorus (OP) and 1.36 tᄋyr?1
of soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) if the whole watershed was covered by natural vegetation without human disturbance.
Current landuse changes, by converting natural vegetation lands to agriculture and animal farms and associated
manure and fertilizer applications, have increased approximately 53.30 tᄋyr?1
of ON, 9.68 tᄋyr?1
of NO3-N, 22.69 tᄋy?1 of
OP and 6.23 tᄋy?1
of SRP exports to the streams in the whole watershed. The SWAT model predicted that a daily 100
kgᄋha?1
of fresh manure deposit from grazing cows during grazing season from later spring to later fall could increase
2.57 kgᄋha?1
ᄋyr?1 of ON, 0.39 kgᄋha?1
ᄋyr?1
of NO3-N, 2.35 kgᄋha?1
ᄋyr?1
of OP and 0.48 kgᄋha?1
ᄋyr?1
of SRP export to the
streams. Fertilization could increase 1.57 kgᄋha?1
ᄋyr?1
of ON and 4.02 kgᄋha?1
ᄋyr?1
of NO3-N export to the streams if 100
kgᄋha?1
ᄋyr?1
of nitrogen (NH4NO3) fertilizer was applied in spring. Also fertilization could increase 1.18 kgᄋha?1
ᄋyr?1 of
OP and 0.20 kgᄋha?1
ᄋyr?1 of SRP export to the streams if 100 kgᄋha?1
phosphorus (P2O5) fertilizer was applied in spring.
Keywords: Model; Landuse; Nitrogen; Phosphorus; Fertilizer; Manure , water quality, agriculture, watershed management, biological water quality
Information Type article
Regional Watershed Shuswap
Sub-watershed if known Salmon River
Aquifer #
Comments
Project status complete
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