Nutrient budgets have been historically developed on livestock farms to improve nutrient use efficiency and reduce field losses. There is growing interest in developing nutrient budgets, particularly for nitrogen and phosphorus, on larger spatial scales such as watersheds and river basins to guide water quality improvement efforts. A big obstacle to developing such budgets is the lack of access to management practices on individual farms. On the other hand, publicly-available data for larger spatial scales, such as survey and census data compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is typically aggregated to the county or state level. There is a need for a methodology that reliably estimates nutrient budgets in individual watersheds across different production conditions. This study investigates the potential of incorporating spatial data products to refine estimated nutrient budgets. Three different approaches for nutrient budget development will be evaluated across different watersheds, HUC-10 level. Sources of uncertainty in the developed nutrient budgets will be assessed and their respective contribution to the overall budgets will be quantified.
Corresponding Author
Sharara Mahmoud, North Carolina State University, m_sharara@ncsu.edu
Other authors
Horacio Aguirre-Villegas, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Rebecca Larson, University of Wisconsin-Madison
The authors are solely responsible for the content of these proceedings. The technical information does not necessarily reflect the official position of the sponsoring agencies or institutions represented by planning committee members, and inclusion and distribution herein does not constitute an endorsement of views expressed by the same. Printed materials included herein are not refereed publications. Citations should appear as follows. EXAMPLE: Authors. 2019. Title of presentation. Waste to Worth. Minneapolis, MN. April 22-26, 2019. URL of this page. Accessed on: today’s date.