Distribution of N originating from Rhine and Meuse

Distribution of N from rivers

For an OSPAR workshop on Trans-Boundary Nutrient Transports (TBNT) we tracked Nitrogen from a number of rivers. In order to do this we added a new state variable for each state variable which represents a concentration of N (dissolved, particulate) in the model. In this set of new state variables we only track the nutrients which originate from a river or a set of rivers. In this way the spreading of N from a river as affected by the ecological and transport processes can be tracked over the whole model domain.

Distribution of N originating from UK rivers

With the figures the distribution of nutrients originating from the rivers in the UK can be compared with the Dutch rivers Rhine and Meuse. It shows that the nutrients from theUK rivers do not reach the continental coast up to the tip of Denmark. The nutrients from the Dutch rivers stay close to the Dutch coast. At the tip of Denmark still 10% of the total N originates from the Dutch rivers.