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A National-Scale Nutrient Loading Model for Finnish Watersheds—VEMALA

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Abstract

VEMALA is an operational, national-scale nutrient loading model for Finnish watersheds. It simulates hydrology; nutrient processes; leaching; and transport on land, rivers, and lakes. The model simulates nutrient gross load, retention, and net load from Finnish watersheds to the Baltic Sea. It was developed over a period of many years and three versions are currently operational, simulating different nutrients and processes. The first version of VEMALA (vs. 1.1) is based on a regression model between nutrient concentration and runoff. Since the first version, the model has been developed towards a more process-based nutrient loading model, by developing a catchment scale, semi-process-based model of total nitrogen loading, VEMALA-N, and by incorporating and developing a field-scale process-based model, ICECREAM, for total phosphorus loading simulations (VEMALA-ICECREAM). The model performance was tested in two ways: (1) by comparison of simulated net nitrogen and phosphorus loads with loads calculated from monitoring data for all major watersheds in Finland and (2) by comparing simulated and observed daily nutrient concentrations for the river Aurajoki by both old and new, process-based model approaches. Comparison of the results shows that the model is suitable for nutrient load simulation at a watershed scale and at a national scale; the new versions of the model are also suitable for applications at a smaller scale.

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Acknowledgments

The development of VEMALA has been funded by the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Finland (MMM), the European Commission (through the GisBloom project: Participatory monitoring, forecasting, control and socio-economic impacts of eutrophication and algal blooms in River Basin Districts (GISBLOOM) - LIFE09 ENV/FI/000569), and the Finnish Academy of Science (through the MARISPLAN project: Marine spatial Planning in a changing climate (Decision number 140871)). The VEMALA model has been developed over many years with inputs from researchers from the Finnish Environment Institute and the Regional Environmental Centres. We thank them for their input in the model development. We are also grateful to Michael Bailey for the language check. The authors also thank an anonymous reviewer, whose comments and suggestions helped to improve the final version of the manuscript.

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  1. Finnish Environment Institute, SYKE, P.O. Box 140, 00251, Helsinki, Finland

    Inese Huttunen, Markus Huttunen, Vanamo Piirainen, Marie Korppoo, Ahti Lepistö, Antti Räike, Sirkka Tattari & Bertel Vehviläinen

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  1. Inese Huttunen
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  2. Markus Huttunen
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  3. Vanamo Piirainen
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  8. Bertel Vehviläinen
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Correspondence to Inese Huttunen.

Appendix 1

Appendix 1

Table 5 VEMALA-N model processes
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Huttunen, I., Huttunen, M., Piirainen, V. et al. A National-Scale Nutrient Loading Model for Finnish Watersheds—VEMALA. Environ Model Assess 21, 83–109 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10666-015-9470-6

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