Evaluation of a nitrogen transport and transformation model in a bare soil

Simulation models are useful tools to understand the interaction between the transformation and the transport of nitrogen in the field. This study was done to calibrate, test and analyse a mechanistic, one-dimensional model that describes the transport and transformations of nitrogen in the soil. The physical module describes transport of water, heat and solute, and the biological module simulates transformations of C and N with a restricted number of measurable organic pools. The calibration was based mainly on laboratory experiments independent of those used to evaluate the model. The evaluation procedure used field data collected on a bare loamy soil. The profiles of water content, water potential, temperature, chloride and nitrate (N-15-labelled and unlabelled) concentrations were measured from 0 to 150 cm continuously for 1 year. Simulated results were in goad agreement with experimental data. However, some discrepancies were noticeable for chloride and nitrate concentrations in the deep layers. These differences were probably due to an underestimation of mass transport in the deep layers. A sensitivity analysis was carried out to determine the response to changes in some parameters in terms of mineralization, leaching and model efficiency. Mineralization is more sensitive to biological factors whereas nitrate leaching is more sensitive to initial and boundary conditions and hydraulic parameters. The experiment ran for only 1 year, which was too short a time to test biological factors.