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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-272</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Hydrochemistry and modeling nitrate concentration in farmland groundwater under different hydrological seasons by integrating hybrid quantum-classical ML, virtual sample generation and AlphaEarth Foundation</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Xu</surname>
<given-names>Junjie</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff8">
<sup>8</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Wei</surname>
<given-names>Xin</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff8">
<sup>8</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Yu</surname>
<given-names>Yilei</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7789-1321</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Yang</surname>
<given-names>Lihu</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Zhai</surname>
<given-names>Yuanzheng</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff6">
<sup>6</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Lv</surname>
<given-names>Cuicui</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff7">
<sup>7</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Song</surname>
<given-names>Xianfang</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>College of Life Sciences, Hebei University, Baoding, Hebei, 071000, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Key Laboratory of Land Water Cycle and Surface Processes, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>College of Ecology and Environment, Institute of Disaster Prevention Science and Technology, Sanhe, Hebei, 065201, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>Engineering Research Center of Groundwater Pollution Control and Remediation, Ministry of Education of China, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff6">
<label>6</label>
<addr-line>College of Water Sciences, Beijing Normal University, 100875, Beijing, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff7">
<label>7</label>
<addr-line>Xiong’an Institute of Innovation, Xiong’an 071899, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff8">
<label>8</label>
<addr-line>These authors contributed equally to this work.</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>29</day>
<month>01</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>55</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Junjie Xu et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-272/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-272/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-272/egusphere-2026-272.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-272/egusphere-2026-272.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Precise seasonal prediction of groundwater nitrate concentrations in intensive agricultural areas faces challenges such as data sparsity, strong spatiotemporal heterogeneity, and complex hydro-biogeochemical processes. To address these issues, this study proposes an integrated prediction framework combining hybrid quantum-classical machine learning, advanced virtual sample generation (t-SNE-GMM-KNN), and remote sensing foundation model semantic embedding (AEF). Modeling was conducted across the 2022&lt;span&gt;&amp;ndash;&lt;/span&gt;2023 normal, dry, and wet seasons in Xiong&apos;an New Area. Hydrochemical types were dominated by Ca-Mg-HCO&lt;sub&gt;3&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;span&gt;&amp;minus;&lt;/span&gt;, controlled by mineral dissolution and evaporation. Nitrate concentrations were highest in the dry season (mean 42.93 mg L&lt;sup&gt;&lt;span&gt;&amp;minus;&lt;/span&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;), driven by evaporative concentration. Spatially, high-value zones shifted: southeast (normal), central (dry), and northwest (wet). MixSIAR modeling based on isotopes indicated domestic sewage and livestock manure (74.1 %) as dominant sources. The t-SNE-GMM-KNN strategy mitigated small-sample bias while preserving nonlinear structure. When virtual samples were augmented to 10-fold, the Random Forest R&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; in the dry season increased from 0.284 to &amp;gt; 0.85. Furthermore, a hybrid quantum-classical Random Forest exhibited superior robustness for data sparsity, achieving peak performance in the normal season (R&lt;sup&gt;2 &lt;/sup&gt;= 0.962, RMSE = 5.73 mg L&lt;sup&gt;&lt;span&gt;&amp;minus;&lt;/span&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt;). Additionally, using only AEF embeddings achieved screening-level accuracy (R&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt; up to 0.860), providing a feasible rapid survey scheme for extensive unmonitored regions. Correlation analysis identified TDS and EC as persistent top predictors (r &amp;gt; 0.8). This comprehensive framework offers a robust solution for seasonal nitrate prediction and sustainable water management.</p>
</abstract>
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