Se. Cooke et Ee. Prepas, Stream phosphorus and nitrogen export from agricultural and forested watersheds on the Boreal Plain, CAN J FISH, 55(10), 1998, pp. 2292-2299
Citations number
35
Categorie Soggetti
Aquatic Sciences
Journal title
CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES
We evaluated phosphorus (P) and inorganic nitrogen (IN) export from two agr
icultural and two forested watersheds on the nutrient-rich but relief-poor
Boreal Plain. One agricultural stream was in a watershed that contained cro
pland, while the second consisted of mixed agricultural activities. Over th
e 2-year study, total dissolved phosphorus (TDP) concentrations were propor
tionately high, particularly in the agricultural streams. Flow-weighted TDP
averaged 82% of the total phosphorus (TP) in the agricultural streams and
43% in the forested streams. In all watersheds, TDP was almost exclusively
dissolved reactive phosphorus and most of the annual P export was in summer
. The type of agricultural activity in the watershed influenced IN speciati
on; in the mixed agricultural watershed, 94% of IN export was ammonium, whe
reas 98% of IN load was nitrate, from the cropland watershed. Disproportion
ately high TDP to TP export from agricultural watersheds suggests that, in
areas of low relief and relatively high soil water P content, land clearing
may influence dissolved more than particulate phosphorus export.