Desmet, N

Holvoet, Katrijn

Nopens, Ingmar

Seuntjens, Piet

Tang, Xiangyu

Van Griensven, An

Van Hoey, Stijn

English

Ghent University Academic Bibliography

Geophysical Research Abstracts,Vol. 11, EGU2009-9165, 2009EGU General Assembly 2009© Author(s) 2009Modeling micropollutant fate at the catchment scale: from science topracticeP. Seuntjens (1,5), N. Desmet (1), K. Holvoet (2), A. Van Griensven (3), S. Van Hoey (1,4), X.Y. Tang (1,5), and I.Nopens (4)(1) Flemish Institute for Technological Research, Environmental Modelling Unit, Mol, Belgium (piet.seuntjens@vito.be), (2)Flanders Hydraulics Research, Antwerp, Belgium, (3) UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education (UNESCO-IHE), Delft,The Netherlands , (4) BIOMATH, Department of Applied Mathematics, Biometrics and Process Control, Ghent University,Ghent, Belgium, (5) Department of Soil Management, Ghent University, Ghent, BelgiumMicropollutants, such as pesticides, personal care products, veterinary and human pharmaceuticals, pose a possiblethreat to human and ecological health. Humans and ecosystems may be exposed to these chemicals via the watersystem. Catchment models can be used to optimise management in view of risk reduction of the chemicals. Alongthe trajectory of science to practice a number of catchment models are available that simulate the fate and transportof micropollutants. They range from physically-based fully-coupled soil, groundwater, and surface water models,over empirical management models, to purely statistical database-driven models. For assessing effects on ecosys-tems, models need to be able to predict the observed highly dynamic behaviour of pesticide concentrations in thesurface water, since adverse effects will be determined by the number, intensity and frequency of ecological thresh-old exceedances. For assessing effects on humans, models need to predict the dilution between areas where thepesticide is released and the location of the drinking water intake, sometimes tens or hundreds of kilometres furtherdownstream. We adapted management models to simulate dynamic pesticide behaviour and fate at the catchmentscale. The models were also used to illustrate the effects of specific management options on risk reduction and toderive the dominant sources of pollutants in a catchment area. The results show that the concentrations of pesticidesin river systems are attributed to (1) fast flow over and in soils or pavements, and to (2) point sources. Therefore,future models for improved estimation of chemical fate at the catchment scale need a combination of stochasticsource characterisation, higher spatial resolution and reduced complexity of the mathematical description of fastflow processes. This will be illustrated by recent developments in model simplification coupled to increased spatialdetail.

Modeling micropollutant fate at the catchment scale: from science to practice

https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/1108986/file/1215214.pdf

Modeling micropollutant fate at the catchment scale: from science to practice

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Ghent University Academic Bibliography