SUPERVISOR: Günter LANGERGRABER

PROJECT ASSIGNED TO: Alba CANET-MARTÍ 

Floodplains have been occupied for millennia since the development of agriculture - an activity that generated the first anthropogenic impact on the hydrological cycle and sedimentation regimes, changing catchment dynamics. Currently, agriculture is leading to nutrient enrichment, seriously affecting water quality in many river basins. The most notable environmental problems of agriculture in the last century worldwide include the overuse of water resources, eutrophication of water bodies, and nitrate leaching. Moreover, pollution of water bodies is usually diffuse through "non-point" sources. Sustainable agriculture arises from the need to develop this activity while avoiding environmental problems that can affect both the population and ecosystems. Thus, it should be based on management practices that improve resource usage efficiency and minimise harmful environmental impacts while maintaining and stabilising crop production. In addition, it is evident that weather patterns are changing, and the events are becoming more extreme due to climate change, e.g. in areas where most of the annual rainfall used to occur in summer, now suffer from summer droughts and the need for irrigation increases. Therefore, it is essential to implement solutions and improve management efficiency to increase the resilience of agricultural fields while minimising the impact it generates at the catchment scale.

To this end, the WATERAGRI project aims to introduce a new framework for using small water retention approaches for managing excess and shortage of water and better recovery of nutrients from agricultural catchments applying a multi-actor approach. It is a research and innovation project supported by EU Horizon H2020 that brings together 23 partners from 12 European countries. Its vision is to solve agricultural water management and soil fertilisation challenges in a sustainable manner to secure affordable food production in Europe for the 21st century. The project addresses three biogeographical regions of Europe: Boreal, Continental and Pannonian.

Within the scope of the project, this research study aims to:

  • Quantify water fluxes in agricultural fields using water stable isotopes as tracers (δ18O, δ2H). The soil water isotopic composition in a soil profile allows for tracking water from different precipitation events in the unsaturated zone. For this purpose, a space for time concept and water balance approaches are used. The applicability for the biogeographical regions and soil textures included in the project will be assessed by conducting a numerical simulation study using HYDRUS-1D.
  • Develop a simplified model to be used as a decision-making tool to implement free water surface (FWS) wetlands in agricultural catchments.
  • Develop a predictive model describing the relationships between operating conditions and feedstock used to produce biochar with nutrient adsorption performance and water retention in streams and agricultural soils.

Accordingly, the simplified models will be integrated into the WATERAGRI decision-support framework and ultimately the WATERAGRI Framework Visual Interface.

The BOKU Research Units involved in the project are the Institute for Sanitary Engineering and Water Pollution Control and the Institute for Soil Physics and Rural Water Management. 

Within the conceptual framework of HR21, this research project relates the most to transformation processes, especially governance, as it aims to provide decision making tools in agricultural management. In addition, tracer methods provide information on the impacts of agricultural practices on water fluxes and nutrient flows, which can be used to assess connectivity, metabolism and vulnerability.