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...in adopting various best management practices, but the tool...Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) model (Williams...Report 97-SR 85.Ames, Iowa: Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, Iowa State University. http...Demonstration of Phosphorus Best Management Practices in the North...
The relationship between row crop land use and nitrate N concentrations in surface water was evaluated for 15 Iowa watersheds ranging from 1002 to 2774 km2 and 10 smaller watersheds ranging from 47 to 775 km2 for the period 1996 to 1998. The percentage of land in row crop varied from 24 to >87% in the 15 large watersheds, and mean annual NO3-N concentrations ranged from 0.5 to 10.8 mg/L. In the small watersheds, row crop percentage varied from 28 to 87% and mean annual NO3-N concentrations ranged from 3.0 to 10.5 mg/L. In both cases, nitrate N concentrations were directly related to the percentage of row crop in the watershed (p < 0.0003). Linear regression showed similar slope for both sets of watersheds (0.11)...
Drainage water management, also known as controlled drainage, is the practice of using a water table control structure at the end of the subsurface drain pipe to reduce subsurface drainage, and thereby nitrate losses. Methods to quantify the potential effects of drainage water management for entire watersheds are needed to evaluate the impacts of large-scale adoption. A distributed modeling approach was developed to apply the field-scale DRAINMOD model at the watershed scale, and used to assess the impact of drainage water management on nitrate load from an intensively subsurface drained agricultural watershed in west central Indiana. The watershed was divided into 6460 grid cells for which drain spacing, soil parent...
The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is one of the largest programs of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that encourages farmers and ranchers to establish resource-conserving vegetative covers to address soil, water and related resource issues on their lands. This research study examines the relationship between the CRP and the changes in the groundwater levels within Texas County in the Oklahoma Panhandle region. The region overlies the central portion of the High Plains Aquifer that has shown significant decline in groundwater levels, due largely to the development of irrigated agriculture. Using the calibrated SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) model and GIS-based analysis, a significant spatial...
This paper evaluates the economic and environmental impacts of three alternative landscape scenarios created by a team of landscape architects, following input from an interdisciplinary team of researchers. In the first scenario, the main objective was to increase production and profitability of commercial agriculture with environmental objectives given secondary weight. In the second scenario, water quality improvements were the main objective with secondary objectives being financial health of the agricultural sector and maintenance and restoration of biodiversity. In the third scenario, maintenance and restoration of native biodiversity was the main objective with secondary weight given to the financial health...
Using a model as a management tool requires testing of the model against field-measured data prior to its application for solving natural resource problems. This study was conducted to test the Root Zone Water Quality Model (RZWQM98) using four years (1996 to 1999) of field-measured data to simulate the effects of different N-application rates on corn yields and nitrate-nitrogen (NO[3]-N) losses via subsurface drain water. Three N-application rates (low, medium, and high), each replicated three times, were applied to corn in 1996 and 1998 under a randomized complete block design at a tile-drained corn-soybean rotation field near Story City, Iowa. No N-fertilizer was applied to soybean in 1997 and 1999. Model calibration...
Coastal wetland vegetation along the Great Lakes differs strongly with latitude, but most studies of Great Lakes wetland condition have attempted to exclude the effect of latitude to discern anthropogenic effects on condition. We developed an alternative approach that takes advantage of the strong relationship between latitude and coastal wetland floristic condition. Latitude was significantly correlated with 13 of 37 environmental variables tested, including growing degree days, agriculture, atmospheric deposition, nonpoint-source pollution, and soil texture, which suggests that latitude is a good proxy for several environmental drivers of vegetation. Using data from 64 wetlands along the U.S. coast of Lakes Huron,...
We evaluated the relationships between landscape characteristics and lake water quality in receiving waters by regressing four water quality responses on landscape variables that were measured for whole watersheds and three different buffer distances (30, 60, and 120 m). Classical percolation theory was used to conceptualize nutrient pathways and to explain nonlinear responses. The response variables were total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), chlorophyll-a (Chl-a), and Secchi transparency (SD). Landscape data were obtained from satellite image-derived maps of 130 watersheds in Iowa using geographic information systems software. We developed regression models with a stepwise protocol selecting the optimal number...
The high load of suspended sediments in Kansas rivers and reservoirs has raised many concerns about the quality of the state's water supply. Erosion originating in pastures, croplands, gullies and channel-banks accounts for the majority of the suspended sediment load. Pasture and cropland adjacent to river and stream banks without riparian buffers increase de-stabilization allowing for bank deterioration and contribute non-point source pollutants such as fertilizers, pesticides and fecal matter. Determining high-risk areas along rivers and tributaries for either riparian remediation or bank stabilization is part of our research. Using GIS technology with present day and historical aerial images, high risk areas...
Results from the generation of a multidecadal gridded climatic dataset for 57 yr (1950–2006) of daily and monthly precipitation (PTotal), maximum temperature (Tmax), and minimum temperature (Tmin) are presented for the important agricultural and forest products state of Wisconsin. A total of 176 climate stations were used in the final gridded dataset that was constructed at 8-km (5.0′) latitude–longitude resolution using an automated inverse distance weighting interpolation. Accuracy statistics for the interpolated data were based on a rigorous validation step using 104 first- and second-order climate observation stations withheld in the production of the gridded dataset. The mean absolute errors (MAE) for daily...
The ecological effects of spawning runs of native Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) on stream ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest and Northern Pacific Rim have been studied extensively. However, little is known about how nonnative Pacific salmon affect stream ecosystems in the Great Lakes Basin, especially given the difference in environmental context between the regions. Mechanisms by which salmon spawners alter stream ecosystems include nutrient enrichment from excretion by live adults, carcass decomposition, and physical disturbance of the substrate during redd construction. The objective of our study was to quantify changes in water chemistry and benthic periphyton in 3 streams in northern Michigan that have...
Reliable water quality models are needed to forecast the water quality consequences of different agricultural nutrient management scenarios. In this study, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), version 2000, was applied to simulate streamflow, riverine nitrate (NO3) export, crop yield, and watershed nitrogen (N) budgets in the upper Embarras River (UER) watershed in east-central Illinois, which has extensive maize-soybean cultivation, large N fertilizer input, and extensive tile drainage. During the calibration (1994–2002) and validation (1985–1993) periods, SWAT simulated monthly and annual stream flows with Nash-Sutcliffe coefficients (E) ranging from 0.67 to 0.94 and R 2 from 0.75 to 0.95. For monthly and...
The article offers information on the stimulation of phosphorus transport in an agricultural watershed using the water erosion prediction project (WEEP) model. The authors state that the WEEP model has been tested for its ability to predict soil erosion, runoff, and sediment delivery over a wide range of conditions and scales for both hillslopes and watersheds. They explain that the study aims to program, incorporate, and test the ability of WEEP to estimate total phosphorus (TP) loss with sediment at the small watershed scale. They also point out that the study suggests that further developments of the phosphorus model could lead to the incorporation of a nutrient cycling routine in the WEEP model to adjust the...
Management practices may affect the potential for nitrate leaching from agricultural systems. Two studies are discussed that used plot-size lysimeters on loamy sand and clay loam soil in Northern New York. One was conducted from 1991 to 1994 and involved sod plowing and the use of three rates of fertilizer on maize (Zea mays L). The other study was conducted from 1997 to 2000 and quantified N-leaching losses under maize and orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata L.) as affected by the timing of manure application. These studies showed that timing and rate of N fertilizer and manure additions, timing of green-manure incorporation, and soil type strongly influenced N-leaching losses. Losses from fall-applied N sources were...
Increased awareness of the contributions of non point source runoff to the degradation of water quality in the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico emphasizes the need to increase conservation practices that reduce nutrient export from agricultural lands. To achieve long- term conservation goals in agricultural landscapes, it is important to understand farmers' perspectives on what practices are effective, practical, and economically attainable. We conducted a series of surveys, interspersed with focused outreach, of farmers in two agricultural watersheds in central Illinois in an attempt to better understand how outreach influenced their views on and adoption of conservation practices. Programs differed between...
Riparian buffers are designed as management practices to increase infiltration and reduce surface runoff and transport of sediment and nonpoint source pollutants from crop fields to adjacent streams. Achieving these ecosystem service goals depends, in part, on their ability to remove water from the soil via transpiration. In these systems, edges between crop fields and trees of the buffer systems can create advection processes, which could influence water use by trees. We conducted a field study in a riparian buffer system established in 1994 under a humid temperate climate, located in the Corn Belt region of the Midwestern U.S. (Iowa). The goals were to estimate stand level transpiration by the riparian buffer,...