Nitrate Contamination: The Use Of Nitrosovibrio Sp. And Pseudomonas Sp. To Identify The Source Of Contamination

Nitrogen compounds are among the major chemical agents artificially released into the environment as a consequence of the growing need for food and energy production. Several studies have highlighted how the excessive use of fertilizers generates a surplus that overcomes the farms real need. In these cases, the nitrates present in fertilizers can be easily washed off by rainfall and irrigation, with possible consequent formation of high nitrate plumes in groundwater, due to hydrodynamic dispersion. Another anthropic source of nitrates is the sewage. For all these reasons, nitrates are the form of nitrogen that more frequently exceeds the maximum admissible concentrations in groundwater. Today is well known that the whole subsoil system is colonized by microorganisms, mainly present in microbial communities, constituted of bacteria and Archaea, but also of protozoa and fungi, carrying out relevant roles in biogeochemical processes. The activities describe in these work analysed the correlation between the NH4+, NO3-and two microorganism (Nitrosovibrio sp. and Pseudomonas sp.) to create a matrix for identifying sources of nitrate contamination.