Dissolved nitrogen pollution peaks before runoff, impacting water quality in villages.
The study looked at how nitrogen pollution from farms in a village in the Yangtze River Delta changes during rainfall. They found that most of the nitrogen lost was in a dissolved form, mainly from organic sources. There were two peaks of nitrogen output before the peak of runoff. As the rainfall continued, the concentration of nitrogen decreased. The amount of nitrogen lost depended on both its concentration and the amount of runoff. The first flush of rainfall carried the highest amounts of nitrogen.
