Integrating Water Quality Data with a Bayesian Network Model to Improve
Spatial and Temporal Phosphorus Attribution: Application to the Maumee
River Basin
Abstract
Surface water nutrient pollution, the primary cause of eutrophication,
remains a major environmental concern in Western Lake Erie despite
intergovernmental efforts to regulate nutrient sources. The Maumee River
Basin has been the largest nutrient contributor. The two primary
nutrients sources are inorganic fertilizer and livestock manure applied
to croplands, which are later carried to the streams via runoff and soil
erosion. Prior studies on nutrient source attribution have focused on
large watersheds or counties at long time scales. Source attribution at
finer spatiotemporal scales, which enables more effective nutrient
management, remains a substantial challenge. This study aims to address
this challenge by developing a portable network model framework for
phosphorus source attribution at the subwatershed (HUC-12) scale. Since
phosphorus release is uncertain, we combine excess phosphorus derived
from manure and fertilizer application and crop uptake data, flow
dynamics simulated by the SWAT model, and in-stream water quality
measurements into a probabilistic framework and apply Approximate
Bayesian Computation to attribute phosphorus contributions from
subwatersheds. Our results show significant variability in
subwatershed-scale phosphorus release that is lost in coarse-scale
attribution. Phosphorus contributions attributed to the subwatersheds
are on average lower than the excess phosphorus estimated by the
nutrient balance approach adopted by environmental agencies. Phosphorus
release is higher during spring planting than the growing period, with
manure contributing more than inorganic fertilizer. By enabling source
attribution at high spatiotemporal resolution, our lightweight and
portable model framework is suitable for broad applications in
environmental regulation and enforcement for other regions and
pollutants.