We thank Castellano and David for their insightful comments (1) on our paper (2), in which they point out that short-term changes in land use and agricultural management can lead to rapid reductions in nitrate leaching from agricultural systems. We fully agree with Castellano and David that in diversified cropping systems, this N distribution may be different, potentially resulting in reduced n...

EXTENDED ABSTRACT The end user requirement for this development is to be able to assess the impact of land use changes on groundwater quality, specifically that due to nitrate leaching from agriculture. Implementation will be for alluvial plains at scales up to about 2000 km. GIS databases provide information on land use and soils. This information, at individual field and farm scale, enables m...

Deposition of sea salts is commonly elevated along the coast relative to inland areas, yet little is known about the effects on terrestrial ecosystem biogeochemistry. We examined the influence of NaCl concentrations on N, C, and P leaching from a coastal Oregon forest Andisol in two laboratory studies: a rapid batch extraction (approximately 1 d) and a month-long incubation using microlysimeter...

The aims of the study were to analyse the concentration of nitrate and ammonium ions in soil solutions obtained using MacroRhizon miniaturized composite suction cups under field conditions and to determine potential nitrogen leaching from soil fertilized with three types of fertilizers (standard urea, slow-release urea, and ammonium nitrate) at the doses of 90 and 180 kg ha-1, applied once or d...

Dairy farms comprise a complex landscape of groundwater pollution sources. The objective of our work is to develop a method to quantify nitrate leaching to shallow groundwater from different management units at dairy farms. Total nitrate loads are determined by the sequential calibration of a sub-regional scale and a farm-scale three-dimensional groundwater flow and transport model using observ...

In the present study, the amount of nitrate and phosphate leaching from agricultural lands into the Zanjanrood River in Iran was simulated using the Soil & Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model. The measured average monthly discharges at the Sarcham station were used to calibrate and validate the SWAT model, and the SWAT Calibration and Uncertainty Program (SWAT-CUP) model was applied to perform t...

We reconstructed the history of terrestrial export of aluminium (Al) to Plesné Lake (Czech Republic) since the lake origin approximately 12,600 year BC, and predicted Al export for 2010-2050 on the basis of previously published and new data on mass budget studies, palaeolimnological data, and MAGIC modelling. We focused on three major Al forms; ionic Al (Al(i)), organically-bound Al (Al(o)), an...

Both earthworms and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are important ecosystem engineers co-occurring in temperate grasslands. However, their combined impacts during grassland establishment are poorly understood and have never been studied. We used large mesocosms to study the effects of different functional groups of earthworms (i.e., vertically burrowing anecics vs. horizontally burrowing end...

California's dairies are the largest confined animal industry in the state. A major portion of these dairies, which have an average herd size of nearly 1000 animal units, are located in low-relief valleys and basins. Large amounts of liquid manure are generated and stored in these dairies. In the semi-arid climate, liquid manure is frequently applied via flood or furrow irrigation to forage cro...

The availability of Haber-Bosch nitrogen (N) has permitted agricultural intensification and increased the productive capacity of agroecosystems; however, approximately 50% of this applied fertilizer N is lost from agricultural landscapes. Extensive efforts have been devoted to improving the N use efficiency of these systems. Diversified crop rotations using cover crops to provide a variety of e...