Theme 3-10-Studies on impact of excessive use of fertilisers in agricultural areas – A case study

Abstract

Increasing population calls for producing more food from out of continuously diminishing per capita arable land. This challenge is also rightly taken and the problem is being solved but with the aid of unmindful use of fertilizers and pesticides. In the case of widely used N-fertilizers, only about 30-50% is assimilated into the edible food, while the unutilised nitrate moves along with porewater. In the unsaturated soil zone, the moisture movement (solute movement) need not be always vertically downward. In order to assess the mobility and accumulation of leached nitrates, a field-cum-laboratory investigation was carried out by the authors. Lateral movement of the pollutant is verified by a field-oriented test