Using a Simple Hydrologic Model to Link Management to Nutrient Concentrations and Loads in Runoff

Soil phosphorus (P) poses a threat to aquatic and marine ecosystems. It is important that P concentrations are kept low to avoid eutrophication of waterways, as occurred in the spectacular and costly blue-green algal blooms in the Barwon and Darling River systems in 1990-1991. The management of water quality often requires comprehensive, catchment-wide approaches. Simulation models can play a role in alerting managers to the sources of P pollution, and ideally can help identify means of reducing that pollution. There are many models of sediment and nutrient dynamics in catchments. Yet despite the importance of analysing relationships betwee