Today, there is yearly applied 34 million tonnes of animal waste to arable land in Denmark. This waste may contain pathogenic zoonotic bacteria and/or antibiotic resistant bacteria, and when applied to arable land there is a risk of contaminating groundwater, surface water, feeding animals or fresh produce. Prediction of faecal bacterial survival and transport in the soil environment will help minimize the risk of contamination, as best management practices can be
adapted to this knowledge.
The aim of this Ph.D. is to study factors influencing faecal bacteria survival and transport in soil – it is based on both field scale and lab scale experiments. The influence of application method and slurry properties has been tested on both survival and transport.