Development and application of a parsimonious statistical model to predict tile flow in minerogenic soils

Subsurface drainage systems are a dominant flow and nitrate transport pathway from fields to surface waters. Existing methods to estimate tile flow are either expensive, complex or need diverse data types. In this study, a parsimonious statistical model was derived and validated for use to obtain estimates of annual tile flow at field scale (1–10 ha) and catchment scale (200–1400 ha) in tile-drained minerogenic soils. The model was developed from tile flow and precipitation data from 38 drainage stations distributed all over Denmark. Firstly, a significant linear relationship between tile flow and precipitation was derived (R2 =0.57; P