hydrogeochemical functioning project

This has been a large project, funded by the NERC LOCAR programme, which has investigated nutrient processes in the subsurface, surface waters and riparian wetlands, focussing on the Pang and Lambourn catchments, and developed a range of modelling tools to represent nutrient transport in Chalk catchments. To date it has produced more than 20 refereed journal papers.

Subsurface: A new hydrogeological conceptual model of the Pang and Lambourn catchments has been developed, and detailed physically-based modelling of the Chalk unsaturated zone has been used, together with detailed measurements, to investigate nutrient transport processes.

Surface Waters and Riparian Wetlands: Water quality of rainfall and streamflows has been studied for a network of sites; stream-sediment interactions have been investigated to show the effects of phosphorus uptake and release, including impacts of sewage effluents and their tertiary treatment. Detailed studies have investigated nutrient cycling in a groundwater-fed riparian wetland in the Lambourn.

Catchment-scale Nutrient Modelling: Existing models of N and P in catchments (INCA-N and INCA-P) have been applied to the Pang and Lambourn to explore catchment response and investigate long-term performance. A new conceptualisation of unsaturated zone processes has been developed (INCA-Chalk), and incorporated within a GIS-based framework. INCA-Chalk has been run to evaluate long term response for different scenarios of nutrient management and for different scenarios of future climate.

Back to research home page