engleski

Nitrate transport modelling in the Varaždin alluvial aquifer

The Varaždin alluvial aquifer is located in the Drava River valley in NW Croatia, providing drinking water for approximately 170, 000 inhabitants of the Varaždin County. In the last decades, this important water resource has become contaminated with nitrate above threshold limit of 50 mg/L. Within this work, nitrate transport is modelled in the area upstream of the Varaždin City, which is predominantly under agricultural activities. The future evolution of nitrate concentrations is predicted for scenarios that differ from each other in nitrate input from different land use classes. The modelling results indicated longer mean residence time in deeper parts of the aquifer (MRT>10 years), allowing slow progradation of contamination plume towards the main wellfield Bartolovec located downstream of the study area. The scenario analysis demonstrated that groundwater contamination with nitrate occurs mainly from agricultural sources, so the management of the agricultural practices seems to be of critical importance towards the remediation of the groundwater quality in the Varaždin aquifer.

nitrate ; transport ; numerical modelling ; Varaždin aquifer ; Croatia

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