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Calibration of Water Quality Models to Assess Agricultural Best Management Practices in Florida’s South Dade Everglades Basin

Published by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, St. Joseph, Michigan www.asabe.org

Citation:  Paper number  022128,  2002 ASAE Annual Meeting . (doi: 10.13031/2013.9169) @2002
Authors:   R. Muñoz-Carpena, D. Bosch, A. Ritter, B. Schaffer and T. Potter
Keywords:   Computer models, BMP, Everglades, cover crop, hydrology, water quality, GLEAMS, WAVE

Computer models, when sufficiently tested under the field conditions where they will be applied, are powerful tools for evaluating natural resource management scenarios and risk assessment. Initial field calibration of two vadose zone chemical transport models, currently used in risk assessment, is conducted. The models selected correspond to two different classes: functional (GLEAMS), and numerical (WAVE). This paper focuses on the potential application of such models to evaluate the effectiveness of a proposed best management practice (BMP) in the very fragile environment of the agricultural area adjacent to Floridas Everglades National Park. The calibration and application procedure, using a complete hydrologic and water quality dataset from a field experimental site located at a University of Florida research center in Homestead (Florida), is presented. A combination of laboratory soil measurements and a state-of-the-art inverse modeling procedure based on a global optimizing algorithm (Global Multilevel Coordinate Search) was used for the numerical model WAVE. Parameters resulting from the procedure were used in the GLEAMS model to predict deep drainage and actual evapotranspiration under BMP and control conditions, and compared with those of the WAVE model. Preliminary modeling results obtained after field calibration show evidence that a summer cover crop (sunn hemp) could be effective when used as a BMP to reduce soil drainage and associated atrazine leaching in a sweet corn rotation.

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