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Title: MODELING SURFACE AND SUBSURFACE TRANSPORT OF MANURE-BORNE MICROORGANISMS

Author
item Pachepsky, Yakov
item Shelton, Daniel

Submitted to: Modeling Environmental Impact of Animal Production
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/8/2003
Publication Date: 6/10/2003
Citation: Pachepsky, Y.A., Shelton, D.R. 2003. Modeling surface and subsurface transport of manure-borne microorganisms. Modeling Environmental Impact of Animal Production. p.12

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Manure-borne microorganisms may become pollutants when they are transported to surface and ground water. Manure particulates are released to environment simultaneously with manure-borne microorganisms. The particulates act as carriers of the microorganisms, affect the microorganisms' survival, and modify properties of soil and water while being transported. Thus, the facilitated transport is a specific feature of manure-borne microorganism dissemination. Such transport manifest itself at various observation scales. Modeling serves as a research tool at finer scales, providing means to test hypotheses about facilitated transport. Examples of such hypotheses are: (a) manure particulates in water substantially alter water movement in soil and runoff, (b) transport of bacteria and virus in unsaturated soil is qualitatively different from transport in saturated soil, (c) microorganisms partition between runoff and infiltration in the same way as water does, (d) microorganisms are released from manure and transported in the same way as phosphorus. At coarser scales, modeling serves as a knowledge package and delivery tool, providing means for screening, prediction, and risk assessment for pathogen transport. The critical scale to observe and simulate microorganism transport is the plot/lysimeter scale, because runoff plots and lysimeters present the smallest observation units in which pathogen transport occurs the same as it does in the real world. The current challenge is developing upscaling procedures to develop parameters for coarse scale models using models and data from finer scales. Towards that end, the new model abstraction methodology shows promises.