Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Californian CESU

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The U.S. Geological Survey¿s National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for research on unsaturated zone fluxes of water and nitrogen (N) across large regions of agricultural land to better understand the relation between N input at the land surface and the distribution and concentration of nitrate in groundwater. The overarching objective of this opportunity is the development and implementation of approaches that utilize a simple vertical flux model (VFM) (Liao et al, 2012) for estimating travel time, water flux and nitrate flux across large regions of agricultural land. Specific research objectives include (1) develop VFMs within type settings to obtain estimates of fN, τu, and N flux; (2) compare VFMs and metamodels for ability to extrapolate these outputs throughout PAs and IWS study areas; and (3) evaluate additional unsaturated zone N input functions, such as mineralization and fixation.

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