Expanding the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) for modeling the transport of contaminants of emerging concern in agricultural watersheds

Contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), such as hormones and pharmaceuticals, have been detected at environmentally relevant levels in water bodies worldwide with potential ecotoxicological implications for aquatic organisms and human health. Currently, no watershed-scale model addresses source-zone transport pathways and transformations of CECs and links them to land management decisions. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model is widely used for evaluating hydrologic transport of nutrients and sediment, and, to a lesser extent, pesticides at scales ranging from individual fields to watersheds. However, the transport of CECs is not represented in SWAT. We have developed a new module to expand SWAT capabilities in simulating the fate and transport of hormones. The module is based on a combination of a framework from the Hormone Export and Recovery Dynamics (HERD) model (Gall et al., 2016) and the current SWAT pesticide module, that was adapted and incorporated into SWAT source code. The cycling of hormones includes application of hormones (estrogens) with manure, transport with surface runoff, degradation and transformations in soil profile, infiltration followed by transport through soil matrix, and lateral flow and macropores that can be connected to tile drains. The fertilizer database was extended with concentrations of hormones reported in literature for different manure types. The outputs generated from this module are loadings of dissolved and sorbed hormones delivered from the land phase of the hydrologic cycle via major flow pathways (surface runoff, lateral flow and tile drains) to the streams.

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Work Title Expanding the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) for modeling the transport of contaminants of emerging concern in agricultural watersheds
Access
Open Access
Creators
  1. Lidiia Iavorivska
  2. Heather E. Preisendanz
  3. Cibin Raj
  4. Tamie L. Veith
Keyword
  1. SWAT model
  2. Estrogens
  3. Water quality
  4. Manure
  5. Fate and transport
  6. Emerging contaminants
License All rights reserved
Work Type Report
Publication Date 11/10/2020
Language
  1. English
DOI doi:10.26207/ftjf-3302
Deposited November 10, 2020

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Version 1
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  • Created
  • Added Iavorivska-et-al_2020_SWAT-CECs_module_Report.pdf
  • Added Creator Lidiia Iavorivska
  • Added Creator Heather E. Preisendanz
  • Added Creator Cibin Raj
  • Added Creator Tamie L. Veith
  • Published
  • Updated