ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Water and Wastewater Management
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1626677
This article is part of the Research TopicDiffuse Agricultural Water Pollution: Nutrient Capture, Recovery, and Recycling SystemsView all 9 articles
Research on Estimating the Nitrogen Pollutant Load of Agricultural Drainage Water in Ningxia Irrigation Area Based on the Improved ECM model
Provisionally accepted
- 1Institute of Disaster Prevention, Sanhe, China
- 2Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Agricultural drainage water pollution in Ningxia irrigation areas is a significant factor affecting water quality in the Yellow River Basin. Based on the principle of total nitrogen (TN) input-output conservation, and incorporating irrigation and precipitation correction factors, an improved Export Coefficient Model (ECM) was developed to estimate the TN pollution load from agricultural drainage water. The spatiotemporal distribution characteristics of TN pollution load in Ningxia irrigation districts were analyzed, leading to the following conclusions: 1)From 2010 to 2022, the annual TN export coefficient and multi-year average total load from agricultural drainage water in Ningxia irrigation areas were 26.85 kg/ha•a⁻¹ and 2064.95 t/a, respectively, showing a significant downward trend overall; 2)Major changes in crop structure occurred in Ningxia irrigation areas between 2010 and 2022, with a sharp decline in rice planting area being the primary factor reducing the pollution load; 3)The spatial distribution of TN pollution load in 2010, 2015, and 2022 exhibited significant heterogeneity, allowing division into high-pollution, medium-pollution, and lowpollution zones. High-pollution zones were primarily located in Pingluo County, Qingtongxia City, and Zhongning County.The improved ECM model used in this study more accurately reflects actual conditions compared to its predecessor and can support the estimation of agricultural return flow pollution loads in irrigation districts and the management of non-point source pollution in river basins.
Keywords: Pollutant load, TN, ECM model, Agricultural drainage water, Ningxia irrigation district
Received: 11 May 2025; Accepted: 21 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yang, Ouyang and Yao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Long Yang, Institute of Disaster Prevention, Sanhe, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.