Reducing nitrate loads from corn and soybean, tile-drained, agricultural production systems in the Upper Mississippi River basin is a major challenge that has not been met. We evaluated a range of possible management practices from biophysical and social science perspectives that could reduce nitrate losses from tile-drained fields in the Upper Salt Fork and Embarras River watersheds of east-central Illinois. Long-term water quality monitoring on these watersheds showed that nitrate losses averaged 30.6 and 23.0 kg nitrate N ha -1 yr -1 (Embarras and Upper Salt Fork watersheds, respectively), with maximum nitrate concentrations between 14 and 18 mg N L -1 . With a series of on-farm studies, we conducted tile monitoring to evaluate several possible nitrate reduction conservation practices. Fertilizer timing and cover crops reduced nitrate losses (30% reduction in a year with large nitrate losses), whereas drainage water management on one tile system demonstrated the problems with possible retrofit designs (water flowed laterally from the drainage water management tile to the free drainage system nearby). Tile woodchip bioreactors had good nitrate removal in 2012 (80% nitrate reduction), and wetlands had previously been shown to remove nitrate (45% reductions) in the Embarras watershed. Interviews and surveys indicated strong environmental concern and stewardship ethics among landowners and farmers, but the many financial and operational constraints that they operate under limited their willingness to adopt conservation practices that targeted nitrate reduction. Under the policy and production systems currently in place, large-scale reductions in nitrate losses from watersheds such as these in east-central Illinois will be difficult.

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The influence of subglacial geothermal activity on the hydrochemistry of the Jokulsa a Solheimasandi glacial meltwater river, south Iceland, is discussed. A radio echosounding and Global Positioning System survey of south-west Myrdalsjokull, the parent ice-cap of the valley glacier S6lheimajokul1, establishes the geometry and position of a subglacial caldera. A cauldron in the ice-cap surface at the basin head is also defined, signifying one location of geothermally driven ablation processes. Background H2S concentrations for the Jokulsa meltwaters in summer 1989 show that leakage of geothermal fluids into the glacial drainage network takes place throughout the melt season. Chemical geothermometry (Na+/K+ ratio) applied to the bulk meltwaters tentatively suggests that the subglacial geothermal area is a high-temperature field with a reservoir temperature of =289-304"C. A major event of enhanced geothermal fluid injection was also detected. Against a background of an apparently warming geothermal reservoir, the event began on Julian day 205 (24 July) with a burst of subglacial seismic activity. Meltwater hydrochemical perturbations followed on day 209 and peaked on day 213, finally leading to a sudden and significant increase in flow on day 214. The hydrochemical excursions were characterized by strong peaks in meltwater H2S, SO:-and total carbonate concentrations, transient decreases in pH, small increases in Ca2+ and Mg2+ and sustained increases in electrical conductivity. The event may relate to temporary invigoration of the subglacial convective hydrothermal circulation, seismic disturbance of patterns of groundwater flow and geothermal fluid recruitment to the subglacial drainage network, or a cyclic 'sweeping out' of the geothermal zone by the annual wave of descending groundwater. Time lags between seismic events and meltwater electrical conductivity responses suggest mean and maximum intraglacial throughflow velocities of 0.032-0.132 m s-l, respectively, consistent with a distributed drainage system beneath Solheimajokull. Because increases in flow follow hydrochemical perturbations, the potential exists to use meltwater hydrochemistry to forecast geothermally driven flood events in such environments.

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