EGU23-2090
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-2090
EGU General Assembly 2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

A DSS for the dynamical assessment and mapping of the groundwater vulnerability: the pesticide and the nitrate fate tools   

Marialaura Bancheri1,2, Marco Acutis3, Marco Botta3, Francesco Fusco4,2, Giuliano Langella2,5, Daniele Lezzi6, Alessia Perego3, and Angelo Basile1,2
Marialaura Bancheri et al.
  • 1Institute for Mediterranean Agricultural and Forestry Systems (ISAFOM), National Research Council (CNR), Portici, NA, 80055, Italy
  • 2CRISP Research Center, Department of Agriculture, University of Napoli Federico II, Portici, Naples, Italy
  • 3Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, University of Milan, Milan, 20133, Italy
  • 4Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, 32, 20133, Milan, Italy
  • 5Department of Agriculture, University of Napoli Federico II, Portici, Naples, Italy
  • 6Department of Computer Sciences, Barcelona Supercomputing Center, 08034, Spain

This work presents two web-based, freely-available dynamical tools for the assessment and the mapping of the groundwater vulnerability to both pesticides and nitrate, within the geospatial Decision Support system (s-DSS) LandSupport (www.landsupport.eu).

The pesticide fate tool simulates the transport of reactive solutes, i.e., pesticides, and maps the percentage of pollutant mass that reaches the groundwater depth within a user defined time-interval. The tool is based on the extended transfer function model (TFM-ext) and its main inputs are: the soil and, eventually, the vadose zone physical and hydrological properties, the climate, the groundwater table depth, the investigated crop and its management (sowing and harvesting dates, pesticides doses and time of application).

The nitrate fate tool simulates the crop growth dynamics and assess the transport of nitrate through the unsaturated zone till the groundwater table depth. The output maps represent the number of years for the arrival to the groundwater of the 50% of the mass of nitrate leachate from the root zone. The tool is based on the coupling of the dynamical crop-growth ARMOSA model and of the TFM-ext model and its main inputs are: the type of crop and/or crop-rotation and related managements (tillage, irrigation, fertilization and residues), the soil physical and hydrological properties, the climate and the groundwater table depth.

Eventually, both tools were extended using the COMPSs programming framework that allows to parallelize the execution of multiple model runs.

The work presents the implementations of both tools for different case studies across three European regions (Campania Region-IT, Marchfeld Region-AT, Zala County-HU), characterized by different spatial scales, pedo-climatic conditions and land-use, showing some examples of applications in support of local farmers, public authorities and environmental planners for the Water, Pesticides and Nitrate Directive applications.

How to cite: Bancheri, M., Acutis, M., Botta, M., Fusco, F., Langella, G., Lezzi, D., Perego, A., and Basile, A.: A DSS for the dynamical assessment and mapping of the groundwater vulnerability: the pesticide and the nitrate fate tools   , EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-2090, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-2090, 2023.