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Denitrification in Agricultural Soils II
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Denitrification in Agricultural Soils II

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Earth Sciences".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 December 2021) | Viewed by 9435

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Micòl Mastrocicco

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Guest Editor
Department of Environmental, Biological and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technologies, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, 81100 Caserta, Italy
Interests: water resources management and protection in the coastal plains, with a focus on water and nitrogen balance at basin scale and salinization processes; characterization and monitoring of dissolved contaminants in aquifers via different assessment methods; implementation of density-dependent groundwater flow models and reactive transport models
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Gianluigi Busico

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Environmental, Biological and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technologies, Campania University “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Caserta, Italy
Interests: hydrology; hydrogeology; groundwater flows; environmental science; water quality; geostatistical analysis; digital mapping; ecohydrology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The aim of this Special Issue of Applied Sciences is to publish papers that outline the state-of-the-art of the role of denitrification in agricultural soils. This Special Issue will cover topics of both measuring and modeling denitrification rates. Emphasis will be placed on scaling up from micro and meso scales to plot and landscape perspectives. Advances in modeling denitrification in upland, lowland, freshwater, and salinized agricultural environments will be addressed. The aim of this Special Issue is to focus on new challenges linked to denitrification in agricultural soils, such as greenhouse gas emissions; anammox, DNRA, and denitrification roles in the terrestrial nitrogen cycle; incomplete denitrification effects on surface and ground waters; and best practices to boost field denitrification rates. Priority will be given to papers using a combination of agronomic, ecological, hydrogeological, and geochemical data and to their conjunctive use to monitor, assess, and quantify relevant processes in agricultural systems.

Prof. Dr. Micòl Mastrocicco
Dr. Gianluigi Busico
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • nitrogen cycle
  • agricultural practice
  • soil organic carbon
  • leaching
  • greenhouse gasses
  • numerical modeling
  • isotopes pairing technique
  • surface water–groundwater interaction

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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19 pages, 14774 KiB  
Article
Extreme Weather Events Affect Agronomic Practices and Their Environmental Impact in Maize Cultivation
by Monika Marković, Jasna Šoštarić, Marko Josipović and Atilgan Atilgan
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(16), 7352; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11167352 - 10 Aug 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2143
Abstract
Sustainable and profitable crop production has become a challenge due to frequent weather extremes, where unstable crop yields are often followed by the negative impacts of agronomic practices on the environment, i.e., nitrate leaching in irrigated and nitrogen (N)-fertilized crop production. To study [...] Read more.
Sustainable and profitable crop production has become a challenge due to frequent weather extremes, where unstable crop yields are often followed by the negative impacts of agronomic practices on the environment, i.e., nitrate leaching in irrigated and nitrogen (N)-fertilized crop production. To study this issue, a three-year field study was conducted during quite different growing seasons in terms of weather conditions, i.e., extremely wet, extremely dry, and average years. Over three consecutive years, the irrigation and N fertilizers rates were tested for their effect on grain yield and composition, i.e., protein, starch, and oil content of the maize hybrids; soil N level (%); and nitrate leaching. The results showed that the impact of the tested factors and their significance was year- or weather-condition-dependent. The grain yield result stood out during the extremely wet year, where the irrigation rate reduced the grain yield by 7.6% due to the stress caused by the excessive amount of water. In the remainder of the study, the irrigation rate expectedly increased the grain yield by 13.9% (a2) and 20.8% (a3) in the extremely dry year and 22.7% (a2) and 39.5% (a3) during the average year. Regardless of the weather conditions, the N fertilizer rate increased the grain yield and protein content. The soil N level showed a typical pattern, where the maximum levels were at the beginning of the study period and were higher as the N fertilizer rate was increased. Significant variations in the soil N level were found between weather conditions (r = −0.719) and N fertilizer rate (r = 0.401). Nitrate leaching losses were expectedly found for irrigation and N fertilizer treatments with the highest rates (a3b3 = 79.8 mg NO3− L). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Denitrification in Agricultural Soils II)
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21 pages, 1110 KiB  
Article
Carbon Availability and Nitrogen Mineralization Control Denitrification Rates and Product Stoichiometry during Initial Maize Litter Decomposition
by Pauline Sophie Rummel, Reinhard Well, Johanna Pausch, Birgit Pfeiffer and Klaus Dittert
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(11), 5309; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11115309 - 7 Jun 2021
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3402
Abstract
Returning crop residues to agricultural fields can accelerate nutrient turnover and increase N2O and NO emissions. Increased microbial respiration may lead to formation of local hotspots with anoxic or microoxic conditions promoting denitrification. To investigate the effect of litter quality on [...] Read more.
Returning crop residues to agricultural fields can accelerate nutrient turnover and increase N2O and NO emissions. Increased microbial respiration may lead to formation of local hotspots with anoxic or microoxic conditions promoting denitrification. To investigate the effect of litter quality on CO2, NO, N2O, and N2 emissions, we conducted a laboratory incubation study in a controlled atmosphere (He/O2, or pure He) with different maize litter types (Zea mays L., young leaves and roots, straw). We applied the N2O isotopocule mapping approach to distinguish between N2O emitting processes and partitioned the CO2 efflux into litter- and soil organic matter (SOM)-derived CO2 based on the natural 13C isotope abundances. Maize litter increased total and SOM derived CO2 emissions leading to a positive priming effect. Although C turnover was high, NO and N2O fluxes were low under oxic conditions as high O2 diffusivity limited denitrification. In the first week, nitrification contributed to NO emissions, which increased with increasing net N mineralization. Isotopocule mapping indicated that bacterial processes dominated N2O formation in litter-amended soil in the beginning of the incubation experiment with a subsequent shift towards fungal denitrification. With onset of anoxic incubation conditions after 47 days, N fluxes strongly increased, and heterotrophic bacterial denitrification became the main source of N2O. The N2O/(N2O+N2) ratio decreased with increasing litter C:N ratio and Corg:NO3− ratio in soil, confirming that the ratio of available C:N is a major control of denitrification product stoichiometry. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Denitrification in Agricultural Soils II)
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Review

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19 pages, 1092 KiB  
Review
Denitrification in Intrinsic and Specific Groundwater Vulnerability Assessment: A Review
by Gianluigi Busico, Luigi Alessandrino and Micòl Mastrocicco
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(22), 10657; https://doi.org/10.3390/app112210657 - 12 Nov 2021
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 3069
Abstract
Several groundwater vulnerability methodologies have been implemented throughout the years to face the increasing worldwide groundwater pollution, ranging from simple rating methodologies to complex numerical, statistical, and hybrid methods. Most of these methods have been used to evaluate groundwater vulnerability to nitrate, which [...] Read more.
Several groundwater vulnerability methodologies have been implemented throughout the years to face the increasing worldwide groundwater pollution, ranging from simple rating methodologies to complex numerical, statistical, and hybrid methods. Most of these methods have been used to evaluate groundwater vulnerability to nitrate, which is considered the major groundwater contaminant worldwide. Together with dilution, the degradation of nitrate via denitrification has been acknowledged as a process that can reduce reactive nitrogen mass loading rates in both deep and shallow aquifers. Thus, denitrification should be included in groundwater vulnerability studies and integrated into the various methodologies. This work reviewed the way in which denitrification has been considered within the vulnerability assessment methods and how it could increase the reliability of the overall results. Rating and statistical methods often disregard or indirectly incorporate denitrification, while numerical models make use of kinetic reactions that are able to quantify the spatial and temporal variations of denitrification rates. Nevertheless, the rating methods are still the most utilized, due to their linear structures, especially in watershed studies. More efforts should be paid in future studies to implement, calibrate, and validate user-friendly vulnerability assessment methods that are able to deal with denitrification capacity and rates at large spatial and temporal scales. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Denitrification in Agricultural Soils II)
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