Scenarios of Nutrient Management for Cleaner Seas: Application on the Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a semi-closed sea connected with the open sea through the Strait of Gibraltar. Due to the circulation pattern and the long residence time, the Mediterranean Sea is a sensitive environment to eutrophication pressures and it is put at risk from direct and indirect impacts of human based activities. In this study, a new version of the model GREEN, originally developed for estimating nutrient loads from diffuse and points sources in Europe, was used based on a grid cell discretization (GREEN-Rgrid). The spatial resolution is 5 arc-minute resolution (9.2 km at the equator) and the model input consists of the latest and best available global data. The total nitrogen (TN) loads of year 2005 were successfully calibrated and validated respectively using 23 monitoring points. This baseline (BASE) was then compared with two different scenarios: S1, a scenario of agricultural sources reduction that consists in reducing the nitrogen surplus by 50%; and S2, a scenario that consists in upgrading all wastewater treatment plants efficiency to tertiary treatment. The S1 scenario resulted most effective than S2 in reducing the total nitrogen loads and specific loads in the Mediterranean subbasins. These results are not intended to be exhaustive, but were developed to give practical examples of what can be further achieved using the GRID-Rgrid model combined with global data.
MALAGO Anna;
BOURAOUI Faycal;
FERRARIO Iacopo;
GRIZZETTI Bruna;
2017-01-18
Publications Office of the European Union
JRC105318
978-92-79-65146-5 (print),
978-92-79-65145-8,
1018-5593 (print),
1831-9424 (online),
EUR 28424 EN,
OP KJ-NA-28424-EN-C (print),
OP KJ-NA-28424-EN-N (online),
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC105318,
10.2760/443241 (print),
10.2760/51281 (online),
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