Pulling the rabbit out of the hat: Unravelling hidden nitrogen legacies in catchment‐scale water quality models.

Pulling the rabbit out of the hat: Unravelling hidden nitrogen legacies in catchment-scale water quality models Human activities have significantly perturbed the global cycle of nitrogen by excess inputs of reactive nitrogen (N) to the environment (Rockström et al., 2009). Both hydrological and biogeochemical processes can lead to substantial legacy effects that result in accumulation of N in the soil and subsurface, and time lags in the propagation of N input flux to N responses in water bodies (Ascott et al., 2021; Basu et al., 2022). However, as N fluxes from the soil pools propagate through the model compartments, we need to quantify and evaluate soil N legacy in water quality models to more accurately simulate N fluxes and concentrations in receiving water bodies. [Extracted from the article]