Special Issue: Denitrification in Agricultural Soils

Special Issue

Denitrification of agricultural drainage line water via immobilized denitrification sludge.

Nonpoint source nitrogen is recognized as a significant water pollutant worldwide. One of the major contributors is agricultural drainage line water. A potential method of reducing this nitrogen discharge to water bodies is the use of immobilized denitrifying sludge (IDS). Our objectives were to (1) produce an effective IDS, (2) determine the IDS reaction kinetics in laboratory column bioreacto...

Denitrification in riparian forests receiving agricultural discharges

Riparian forests can remove large amounts of nitrate from the groundwater discharges of adjacent uphill croplands. We review the mechanisms that could account for NO3 removal. Denitrification is hypothesized to be important, but measurement problems limit the relevant field data. We used large chambers (1-20 mZ) and tunable-diode laser infrared spectrophotometry to measure nitrous oxide (NzO) e...

Carbon Sequestration in Agricultural Soils

Although it is common to alternate between till and no-till practices, past research has considered farmers’ tillage options to be limited to the dichotomous choice of whether or not to switch to a long-term no-till regime. This paper expands farmers’ options and models their choices of tillage frequency. Less frequent tilling sequesters more carbon but permits a greater accumulation of weeds, ...

Agricultural Soils in Europe – Special Demands Related to Intensive Agriculture in an Industrialized Environment