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Quantifying uncertainty on flow and transport of nitrate using geophysical data in the Danish aquifer system

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Lijing Wang
Excessive application of fertilizers in agriculture becomes the main cause of increasing nitrate concentration in groundwater. In Denmark, nitrate presence is highly influenced by the heterogeneity of geological structures, hydraulic parameters, and nitrate reduced potential at the field scale. Therefore, instead of imposing nitrate reduction regulation uniformly, spatially targeted regulation at the local agricultural scale becomes a promising management strategy: meet both the reduction target effectively and a maximal economic benefit. This research proposes an automated workflow to jointly quantify global and spatial uncertainty of nitrate reduction prediction at the local agricultural scale, using groundwater flow and nitrate transport as forward models. Uncertainty is constrained by multiple sources of observed data, including high-quality ground-based tTEM data, hydrological and geochemical information for nitrate distribution. The expected results of this project will provide a more rigorous uncertainty quantification for a practical and quantitative decision making of targeted nitrate management