An Integrated Approach for Assessing Nitrogen Fate in Italy

This paper presents a tiered approach for addressing nutrient fate at various scales that makes use of readily available data at EU level. A statistical approach is used as a screening tool to identify catchments where nutrient losses are the highest. In a subsequent tier, a physically-based model is used to identify the major processes and pathways controlling and contributing to nutrient losses, while the farm scale model EPIC is used to elaborate appropriate farming practices to reduce pollution load without endangering the farm economic sustainability. The in-tegrated framework, and in particular tiers 1 and 3, was applied for the whole Italian territory. Tier 1 ap-proach highlighted the Po catchment as an area with high nutrient losses mostly linked to agricultural activities. The EPIC model was then applied to the Pavia region within the Po valley to evaluate the impact of a shifting from a fully mineral fertilisation strategy towards a split applica-tion in time of manure and mineral fertiliser.

BOURAOUI Faycal;  GRIZZETTI Bruna;  ALOE Alberto; 

2015-01-27

PARLAR SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS (P S P)

JRC48586

1018-4619,   

http://www.psp-parlar.de/details_artikel.asp?tabelle=FEBArtikel&artikel_id=2170&jahr=2008,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC48586,