Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 14
NITRATE LEACHING FROM
INTENSIVE ORGANIC FARMS TO
GROUNDWATER
O. DAHAN, A. BABAD, N. LAZAROVITCH, E. E. RUSSAK,
AND
D. KURTZMAN
14.1 INTRODUCTION
Developing efficient productive agriculture, while preserving ground-
water quality, is one of the most important challenges in water resource
sustainability. On the one hand, developing agriculture is straightforward
wherever agricultural input, such as water and nutrients, is unlimited. On
the other hand, productive agriculture must inherently include the leaching
of excess lower quality water below the root zone to the unsaturated zone
and ultimately to the groundwater (Shani et al., 2007; Dudley et al., 2008).
As such, maintaining the delicate balance between productive agriculture
and groundwater quality requires a broad perspective over different time
and dimensional scales. While agricultural productivity is measured on a
timescale of seasons (several months to several years), its final impact on
