The impact of land use changes on the future load of nitrogen to a Danish inlet - Quantification of leaching from the root zone

A new empirical nitrogen (N) leaching model was applied at detailed agricultural data at field level, obtained from a questionnaire survey including two small catchments. Getting agricultural data from two public electronic registers concerning the 592 km Mariager Fjord catchment, the leaching results were extrapolated from the two reference catchments to the Mariager Fjord catchment, data grouped by precipitation class, soil type, farm type, livestock density and crop type class. The complete concept was utilised in a scenario showing the impact of tightening the existing regulations concerning maximum N-fertilisation at farm level in Denmark.