Applying the nutrient transfer continuum framework to phosphorus and nitrogen losses from livestock farmyards to watercourses.

Farmyards are commonly conceptualized as point sources of nutrient pollution nested within the wider agricultural landscape. However, within farmyards there are individual sources and delivery pathways, each of which is affected by a range of management practices and infrastructure. Rainfall mobilizes these nutrients, which may then be delivered to a receptor or to the wider drainage network.

The need to integrate legacy nitrogen storage dynamics and time lags into policy and practice.

Increased fluxes of reactive nitrogen (N), often associated with N fertilizer use in agriculture, have resulted in negative environmental consequences, including eutrophication, which cost billions of dollars per year globally. To address this, best management practices (BMPs) to reduce N loading to the environment have been introduced in many locations. However, improvements in water quality associated with BMP implementation have not always been realised over expected timescales.