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Phosphorus and sediment transfers in a grassland river catchment

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Abstract

The Oona Water (102 km2) is a tributary of the Blackwater River (1,480 km2), an Irish cross border catchment and the largest of the six influent rivers to Lough Neagh. An intensive investigation into the magnitude of phosphorus and sediment transfers from field (0.15 km2), farm (0.62 km2) and landscape (84.50 km2) scale sub-catchments showed that total phosphorus transfers were 1.73, 1.82 and 2.50 kg/ha, respectively, during the 2001–2002 hydrological year. Two important features of these data were noted. Firstly, higher transfers from the landscape scale sub-catchment were related to phosphorus inputs between storm events. These were mainly in the soluble form and maintained the river in a hypertrophic state during low flow despite there being no major point source discharges in the catchment. A mass P balance estimate of all domestic wastewater effluents indicated that this is a minor source but may have major impacts at extreme low flows. Secondly, despite the Oona Water being a grassland catchment the main phosphorus fraction recorded was in the particulate form (>50%) and strongly correlated with suspended sediments (SSs), manganese and iron during both storm and non-storm periods. Previous Irish studies have indicated that the main edge-of-field phosphorus transfers from grassland soils are in the soluble form. While erosive overland flow cannot be ruled out from soils of low permeability in the Oona Water, it is also likely that soluble P is entrained to equilibrium by manganese and iron rich SSs from multiple sources that will include stream bank and bed sediments.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency under the Pathways for Phosphorus Loss project (2000-LS-M2.2.1.1a Phase 1 Environmental Research, Technological Development and Innovation initiative under the National Development Plan 2000–2006) and also by the UK Natural Environment Research Council’s Joint Infrastructure Fund under the Catchment Hydrology and Sustainable Management project (CHASM—NER/H/S/1999/00164, part of the National Infrastructure for Catchment Hydrology Experiments). We acknowledge and thank the Water Service, Northern Ireland for sewered population data, the Rivers Agency, Northern Ireland for other flow data and also Dr. Crawford Jordan of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (Northern Ireland) for help with determining catchment population statistics.

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  1. Environmental Sciences Research Unit, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Ulster, Cromore Road, BT52 1SA, Coleraine, UK

    Richard W. Douglas, Wayne Menary & Philip Jordan

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  1. Richard W. Douglas
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Correspondence to Richard W. Douglas.

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Douglas, R.W., Menary, W. & Jordan, P. Phosphorus and sediment transfers in a grassland river catchment. Nutr Cycl Agroecosyst 77, 199–212 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10705-006-9057-3

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