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Modeling geogenic and atmospheric nitrogen through the East River Watershed, Colorado Rocky Mountains

There is a growing understanding of the role that bedrock weathering can play as a source of nitrogen (N) to soils, groundwater and river systems. The significance is particularly apparent in mountainous environments where weathering fluxes can be large. However, our understanding of the relative co...

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Autores principales: Maavara, Taylor, Siirila-Woodburn, Erica R., Maina, Fadji, Maxwell, Reed M., Sample, James E., Chadwick, K. Dana, Carroll, Rosemary, Newcomer, Michelle E., Dong, Wenming, Williams, Kenneth H., Steefel, Carl I., Bouskill, Nicholas J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7990236/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33760812
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247907
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author Maavara, Taylor
Siirila-Woodburn, Erica R.
Maina, Fadji
Maxwell, Reed M.
Sample, James E.
Chadwick, K. Dana
Carroll, Rosemary
Newcomer, Michelle E.
Dong, Wenming
Williams, Kenneth H.
Steefel, Carl I.
Bouskill, Nicholas J.
author_facet Maavara, Taylor
Siirila-Woodburn, Erica R.
Maina, Fadji
Maxwell, Reed M.
Sample, James E.
Chadwick, K. Dana
Carroll, Rosemary
Newcomer, Michelle E.
Dong, Wenming
Williams, Kenneth H.
Steefel, Carl I.
Bouskill, Nicholas J.
author_sort Maavara, Taylor
collection PubMed
description There is a growing understanding of the role that bedrock weathering can play as a source of nitrogen (N) to soils, groundwater and river systems. The significance is particularly apparent in mountainous environments where weathering fluxes can be large. However, our understanding of the relative contributions of rock-derived, or geogenic, N to the total N supply of mountainous watersheds remains poorly understood. In this study, we develop the High-Altitude Nitrogen Suite of Models (HAN-SoMo), a watershed-scale ensemble of process-based models to quantify the relative sources, transformations, and sinks of geogenic and atmospheric N through a mountain watershed. Our study is based in the East River Watershed (ERW) in the Upper Colorado River Basin. The East River is a near-pristine headwater watershed underlain primarily by an N-rich Mancos Shale bedrock, enabling the timing and magnitude of geogenic and atmospheric contributions to watershed scale dissolved N-exports to be quantified. Several calibration scenarios were developed to explore equifinality using >1600 N concentration measurements from streams, groundwater, and vadose zone samples collected over the course of four years across the watershed. When accounting for recycling of N through plant litter turnover, rock weathering accounts for approximately 12% of the annual dissolved N sources to the watershed in the most probable calibration scenario (0–31% in other scenarios), and 21% (0–44% in other scenarios) when considering only “new” N sources (i.e. geogenic and atmospheric). On an annual scale, instream dissolved N elimination, plant turnover (including cattle grazing) and atmospheric deposition are the most important controls on N cycling.
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spelling pubmed-79902362021-04-05 Modeling geogenic and atmospheric nitrogen through the East River Watershed, Colorado Rocky Mountains Maavara, Taylor Siirila-Woodburn, Erica R. Maina, Fadji Maxwell, Reed M. Sample, James E. Chadwick, K. Dana Carroll, Rosemary Newcomer, Michelle E. Dong, Wenming Williams, Kenneth H. Steefel, Carl I. Bouskill, Nicholas J. PLoS One Research Article There is a growing understanding of the role that bedrock weathering can play as a source of nitrogen (N) to soils, groundwater and river systems. The significance is particularly apparent in mountainous environments where weathering fluxes can be large. However, our understanding of the relative contributions of rock-derived, or geogenic, N to the total N supply of mountainous watersheds remains poorly understood. In this study, we develop the High-Altitude Nitrogen Suite of Models (HAN-SoMo), a watershed-scale ensemble of process-based models to quantify the relative sources, transformations, and sinks of geogenic and atmospheric N through a mountain watershed. Our study is based in the East River Watershed (ERW) in the Upper Colorado River Basin. The East River is a near-pristine headwater watershed underlain primarily by an N-rich Mancos Shale bedrock, enabling the timing and magnitude of geogenic and atmospheric contributions to watershed scale dissolved N-exports to be quantified. Several calibration scenarios were developed to explore equifinality using >1600 N concentration measurements from streams, groundwater, and vadose zone samples collected over the course of four years across the watershed. When accounting for recycling of N through plant litter turnover, rock weathering accounts for approximately 12% of the annual dissolved N sources to the watershed in the most probable calibration scenario (0–31% in other scenarios), and 21% (0–44% in other scenarios) when considering only “new” N sources (i.e. geogenic and atmospheric). On an annual scale, instream dissolved N elimination, plant turnover (including cattle grazing) and atmospheric deposition are the most important controls on N cycling. Public Library of Science 2021-03-24 /pmc/articles/PMC7990236/ /pubmed/33760812 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247907 Text en © 2021 Maavara et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Maavara, Taylor
Siirila-Woodburn, Erica R.
Maina, Fadji
Maxwell, Reed M.
Sample, James E.
Chadwick, K. Dana
Carroll, Rosemary
Newcomer, Michelle E.
Dong, Wenming
Williams, Kenneth H.
Steefel, Carl I.
Bouskill, Nicholas J.
Modeling geogenic and atmospheric nitrogen through the East River Watershed, Colorado Rocky Mountains
title Modeling geogenic and atmospheric nitrogen through the East River Watershed, Colorado Rocky Mountains
title_full Modeling geogenic and atmospheric nitrogen through the East River Watershed, Colorado Rocky Mountains
title_fullStr Modeling geogenic and atmospheric nitrogen through the East River Watershed, Colorado Rocky Mountains
title_full_unstemmed Modeling geogenic and atmospheric nitrogen through the East River Watershed, Colorado Rocky Mountains
title_short Modeling geogenic and atmospheric nitrogen through the East River Watershed, Colorado Rocky Mountains
title_sort modeling geogenic and atmospheric nitrogen through the east river watershed, colorado rocky mountains
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7990236/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33760812
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247907
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