Nutting conceptual models: a toolbox to estimate Nitrogen and Phosphorus loads and retentions of water bodies

Abstract

Assessment of pressure and impact of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) on continental water bodies is a major environmental issue in the context of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) to achieve "good ecological status". This paper presents a toolbox called Nutting, whose aim is to estimate nitrates and total phosphorus loads and retentions in all French WFD subdivided watersheds. This toolbox is a set of conceptual models, statistically calibrated on national or regional environmental datasets. These models, fitted at different scales (from 2000 km² to the whole of France), provide flux and retention results when in-situ measurements are not available.