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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Environmental Microbial & Food Safety Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #337236
Research Project: Design and Implementation of Monitoring and Modeling Methods to Evaluate Microbial Quality of Surface Water Sources Used for Irrigation

Location: Environmental Microbial & Food Safety Laboratory

Title: Development and evaluation of the microbial fate and transport module for the Agricultural Policy/Environmental eXtender (APEX) model

Author
item HONG, EUNMI - Orise Fellow
item PARK, YONGEUN - University Of Ulsan College Of Medicine
item MUIRHEAD, RICHARD - Agresearch
item Pachepsky, Yakov

Submitted to: European Geophysical Society Meeting
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/21/2017
Publication Date: 4/23/2017
Citation: Hong, E., Park, Y., Muirhead, R., Pachepsky, Y.A. 2017. Development and evaluation of the microbial fate and transport module for the Agricultural Policy/Environmental eXtender (APEX) model. European Geophysical Society Meeting. Geophysical Research Abstracts. EUG. 19:1365.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Microbial contamination of waters in agricultural watershed is the critical public health issue. The watershed-scale model has been proven to be one of the candidate tools for predicting microbial water quality and evaluating management practices. The Agricultural Policy/Environmental eXtender (APEX) is the watershed-scale water quality model that includes highly detailed representation of agricultural management. The objective of this work was to develop the first APEX microbial fate and transport module that could use the APEX conceptual model of manure removal together with recently introduced conceptualizations of the in-stream microbial fate and transport. The new module included bacteria survival in soil-manure mixing layer and water, rainfall-induced wash-off of manure deposition, and in-stream microbial fate and transport process. The essential inputs for microbial fate and transport simulation were provided from the APEX: manure erosion, runoff, streamflow, sediment transport, etc. The newly developed APEX model was applied to simulate seven years of monitoring data for the Toenepi watershed in New Zealand. The dominant land use was intensive pasture-based dairy. Stream flow was calibrated with the data from watershed outlet. The accuracy of the model was classified as good. The APEX with the microbe module reproduced well the monitored pattern of E. coli concentrations at the watershed outlet. This study will contribute to prediction the microbial quality of water under the existig agricultural practices and selection of the best management practices.