Looking in more detail at the full published study, the researchers found that "Overall, >80% of the Basin total runoff and N leaching was from the rising extreme precipitation areas. Basin-wide, extreme precipitation events occurred only 8.6 days year−1 (2.4% of 365 days) on average, but they contributed to approximately one-third of annual total water yields and N yields. This is likely a conservative estimate of the contribution of extreme precipitation events as we only focus on extreme precipitation days without consideration of post-event legacy effects."
This new understanding of the role of extreme precipitation can inform how changes can be made in fertilizer and manure application to reduce the loss of nutrients. Comments are closed.
|
LWV Upper Mississippi River Region | UMRR blog |