Agriculturae Conspectus Scientificus, Vol 78, No 2 (2013)

Numerical Modeling of Water Flow and Contaminant (Nitrates) Transport in Agriculture: Review

Vilim FILIPOVIĆ

Pages: 79-84

Summary


Water movement in soils is a key process that affects water quantity and quality in the environment. Movement of contaminants in soils is closely linked with the soil water flux and it is very important to properly evaluate these processes that occur in vadose zone. With development of new technologies more attention is dedicated to the use of numerical models to assess water flow behavior and groundwater pollution caused by agricultural production. This paper presents a review of many articles that are focused on vadose zone modeling and on the application of these models in agricultural/environmental sciences. With increasing development of computer technologies there is also increasing amount of programs that solve water flow and solute transport. Water flow is solved with Richard’s equation, and for space discretization Galerkin finite element method is mostly used. The equation used in solute transport dominantly depends on solute whose transport is simulated. Modeling for sure represents the future of environmental protection and can be used for better understanding of vadose zone processes.


Keywords


vadose zone, numerical modeling, agriculture

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