Impact assessment of on-site swine wastewater treatment facilities on spatiotemporal variations of nitrogen loading in an intensive livestock farming watershed

Excess nitrogen (N) resulting from human activity causes environmental issues, including eutrophication in agricultural watersheds with intensive livestock farming. Among the N sources in Korea, on-site swine wastewater treatment facilities (OSWTFs) tend to be densely distributed in watersheds with intensive livestock farming. Therefore, it is critical to sustainably manage livestock excreta. This study used the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to investigate the effects of various pollution sources, including OSWTFs, on N loads in rivers in the Cheongmi watershed, which is an intensive livestock farming and agricultural area in Korea. The simulated hydrological and water quality outputs were calibrated and validated for 2012-2019 using Sequential Uncertainty Fitting ver. 2 in the SWAT-Calibration and Uncertainty Program. The hydrological simulations agreed with the observations, with a correlation coefficient (R-2) of >= 0.8 and Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient of 0.67-0.86. The simulated total N (TN) was also strongly correlated with the observed monthly average loading (R-2, 0.36-0.73) and annual average concentration (R-2 >= 0.5), demonstrating the reliability of the model constructed herein. A simulation of management scenarios indicates that, if the permissible N concentration in effluent from OSWTFs was reduced to 60 mg N/L, the TN concentrations in rivers would decrease by up to 50%. The findings of this study indicate that more stringent effluent water quality standards are required for OSWTFs to protect water quality and aquatic ecosystems in intensive swine farming watersheds.

Automated summary

This study investigated the effects of different pollution sources on nitrogen loads in intensive livestock farming watersheds in Korea using the SWAT model. The simulations showed that reducing the nitrogen concentration in effluent from on-site swine wastewater treatment facilities can significantly decrease nitrogen loads in rivers. Therefore, stricter effluent water quality standards are necessary to protect water quality and aquatic ecosystems in intensive swine farming watersheds.