ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Soil Processes
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1641345
This article is part of the Research TopicNitrate from Field to Stream: Characterization and MitigationView all 15 articles
Insights on nitrate transport in a shallow, sandy aquifer at various temporal and spatial scales
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Guelph College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Guelph, Canada
- 2G360 Groundwater Research Institute, Guelph, Canada
- 3Universite du Quebec a Montreal Departement des sciences de la Terre et de l'atmosphere, Montreal, Canada
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Nitrogen is necessary for successful crop growth, but excess nitrogen in water has implications for both environmental and human health. The factors driving these impacts and their extent remain incompletely understood. In particular, how average nitrogen concentrations compare to concentrations following intense rain events is not well known, partly due to the challenges of building spatially and temporally realistic concentration datasets. To address these questions, the aim of this study was to investigate hydraulic and nutrient dynamics in a sand plain aquifer system in the Laurentian Great Lakes Basin (north of Lake Erie in Ontario, Canada) through monthly and sub-daily groundwater and surface water sampling to contextualize storm event responses. A study was conducted across the Lower Whitemans Creek (LWC) subcatchment and at a field scale site. Spatial and temporal variations in nitrate concentrations and field parameters were measured in groundwater and surface water monthly from October 2021 to November 2024. Event-based sampling campaigns were conducted using either an ISCO autosampler with a 2-hr interval (in November 2022 and March 2023) or SUNA/EXO monitoring stations with a monitoring interval of 15-60 min (at varying times during October 2022 to November 2024). The results showed that shallow groundwater loaded with NO3-N discharging to small creeks is apparently a notable contributor to elevated levels in Whitemans Creek. It was also observed that the high sampling frequency, carried out via in-situ monitoring equipment, provided marked advantages over automated grab sampling methods. The study highlights the benefits and limitations associated with the diƯerent sampling methods to guide future research related to nitrogen quantification, including enhancing the sampling procedures and dataset collection approaches.
Keywords: nitrate, Agricultural watershed, Groundwater quality, Surface water quality, Storm event analysis
Received: 04 Jun 2025; Accepted: 29 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zeuner, Levison and Larocque. 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: Christina Zeuner, University of Guelph College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Guelph, Canada
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