Cities have the potential to change the way resources and nutrients are utilized as they are centers of consumption and waste production. Losses of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus (P) to water ways, called eutrophication, is a major water quality issue that marine ecosystems face (Bennett et al., 2001; Smith & Schindler, 2009). Urban agriculture (UA) provides a chance for some nutrient reuse within city boundaries, but there exists a gap in knowledge regarding how soil properties influence P movement patterns within UA contexts. To explore the relationships between P leachate and soil characteristics from urban gardens, I created generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) using data from 8 gardens in Linköping, Sweden, over a period of 2 years. Though leachate data and soil traits varied between gardens, values from the urban gardens generally did not vary extensively compared to those from field studies or rural agriculture. As hypothesized, plant-available P from the ammonium lactate soil P test (P-AL) and degree of P saturation (DPS) were both important, although why they were significant to their respective water quality variables was unclear. Moreover, spatial correlations were also not as influential as expected in P leaching. Additionally, other important soil characteristics (pH, clay, plant-available iron (Fe-AL), and plant-available aluminum (Al-AL)) seemed to relate to P adsorption and release, indicating a need for future research in that direction.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:liu-189550 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Tai, Kara |
| Publisher | Linköpings universitet, Tema Miljöförändring |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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