# Unlocking Soil Health and Surface Water Quality Management: A Review on Fluorescent Dissolved Organic Matter (fDOM) in Agricultural Systems

## TL;DR

This paper reviews how fluorescent dissolved organic matter (fDOM) can help track and manage agricultural runoff to improve water quality and soil health.

## Contribution

The paper introduces fDOM as an innovative, real-time method for tracing carbon sources in agricultural runoff.

## Key findings

- Fluorescence and absorbance indices can identify carbon molecular weight and biological activity in runoff.
- PARAFAC analysis helps determine parent source components from comprehensive fDOM data sets.
- fDOM provides high-frequency data to support informed environmental management decisions.

## Abstract

Agricultural runoff is a major source of water quality
impairments
and is prevalent in areas where agricultural operations focus on maintaining
global food security. To alleviate downstream impacts, best management
practices are used to cultivate food systems and enhance soil nutrient
cycling. When runoff events do occur, tracing the impairments often
involves complex and costly methods to determine analyte concentrations
and forecast mitigation techniques. Fluorescent dissolved organic
matter (fDOM) is an innovative approach to understanding parent source
materials and carbon signatures from runoff. Fluorescence and absorbance
indices can distinguish intensities of the carbon molecular weight,
biological activity, and humification that can trace the environmental
availability of carbon sources. Comprehensive data sets can be combined
using parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) to determine parent source
components. Integrating these analyses can provide real-time high-frequency
data to empower policymakers and land managers to make informed decisions
aimed at reducing the environmental degradation associated with modern
intensive agriculture.