Environmental Impacts Of Land Use In Rural Regions: The Development, Validation And Application Of Model Tools For Management And Policy Analysis

Concern about groundwater contamination has focused attention on the processes that influence chemical fate in soil water systems. Independent of the mode of introduction of the chemicals, a major concern with respect to groundwater contamination is the passage of these chemicals through the unsatured zone and the relatively thin cover layers overlaying aquifers. Pollution due to diffuse sources is probably the most difficult pollution to model, because the loads are usually nonhomogeneous and governed by spatially and temporally nonhomogeneous and dynamic processes of the chemical and biochemical phenomena. Estimation techniques and transfer processes of required input data from existing databases in geographic information systems are provided in this work. Spatially variable input data such as soil type, hydrological conditions, land use intensity and atmospheric deposition of pollutants are derived from basic land and climate characteristics. A model for the evaluation of land use and water management scenarios is described. There are examples of field and regional studies for water management and policy analysis. The diskette gives the basic transport and process model with exercises.