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ARS Home » Midwest Area » St. Paul, Minnesota » Soil and Water Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #157462
Title: TRANSPORT AND TRANSFORMATION OF REACTIVE GASEOUS NITROGEN IN FERTILIZED AGRICULTURAL SOILS AND N SATURATED FOREST SOILS: MODELING AND EXPERIMENTS

Author
item Venterea, Rodney - Rod
item ROLSTON, D - UNIV OF CA DAVIS
item GROFFMAN, P - INST ECOSYSTEM STUDIES

Submitted to: ASA-CSSA-SSSA Annual Meeting Abstracts
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/16/2003
Publication Date: 11/2/2003
Citation: Venterea, R.T., Rolston, D., Groffman, P. 2003. Transport and transformation of reactive gaseous nitrogen in fertilized agricultural soils and N saturated forest soils: modeling and experiments. ASA-CSSA-SSSA Annual Meeting Abstracts. Abstract No. S01-Venterea922121-oral.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Nitric oxide (NO) is a highly reactive gas that is produced by biological and chemical processes within soils of agricultural, forest, and other ecosystems. Emissions of NO from soils to the atmosphere represent losses of soil N that would otherwise be available for plant uptake. Once emitted to the atmosphere NO plays a central role in regulating tropospheric ozone and also contributes to atmospheric deposition of N to downwind ecosystems. In some circumstances, soil emissions make a substantial contribution to regional ozone chemistry. We have studied the (i) production, (ii) consumption, and (iii) diffusive transport of NO in agricultural and forest soils via a combination of field and laboratory experiments, and process modeling. These studies have demonstrated that under most conditions all three processes exert significant control over the net flux of NO from the surface to atmosphere. Because each of these processes can be variable in time and space, this fact complicates the task of predicting NO emissions even given reasonably comprehensive data inputs. Nonetheless, the combination of independent parameter estimation and model versus data comparisons has shed some light on underlying mechanisms and their interactions, and improved our ability to predict the magnitude of NO fluxes from soil to the atmosphere.