Indiana freshwater use projection and spatial analysis for renewable water supply

Often, when governmental and non-governmental entities attempt to make plans for future water supply and environmental flows they fall into the trap of developing strategies for specific locations rather than working together and approaching a problem from a basin or regional scale. The problem persists when lack of knowledge of local situations and confining management plans with city and county lines merge together. The purpose of this study is to project future water use and then to reveal if there is any pattern in renewable water supply in Indiana to provide a basis for policy makers and stakeholders to consider possible adaptations

Naturalized Daily Streamflow Reconstruction for the Upper Wabash River

During the 1960s, the United States Army Corps of Engineers constructed a number of dams in the Upper Wabash watershed in Indiana, primarily for flood control, hydropower and recreation. In order to investigate the impact of other environmental changes, such as changes in land management and climate on streamflow, it is necessary to reconstruct what the natural flow of the impounded river would be without the influence of the upstream reservoirs

A spatially distributed model for the dynamic prediction of sediment erosion and transport in mountainous forested watersheds

Erosion and sediment transport in a temperate forested watershed are predicted with a new sediment model that represents the main sources of sediment generation in forested environments (mass wasting, hillslope erosion, and road surface erosion) within the distributed hydrology-soil-vegetation model (DHSVM) environment. The model produces slope failures on the basis of a factor-of-safety analysis with the infinite slope model through use of stochastically generated soil and vegetation parameters. Failed material is routed downslope with a rule-based scheme that determines sediment delivery to streams. Sediment from hillslopes and road surfaces is also transported to the channel network. A simple channel routing scheme is implemented to predict basin sediment yield. We demonstrate through an initial application of this model to the Rainy Creek catchment, a tributary of the Wenatchee River, which drains the east slopes of the Cascade Mountains, that the model produces plausible sediment yield and ratios of landsliding and surface erosion when compared to published rates for similar catchments in the Pacific Northwest. A road removal scenario and a basin-wide fire scenario are both evaluated with the model

Adaptive Targeting: Engaging Farmers to Improve Targeting and Adoption of Agricultural Conservation Practices

Targeting of agricultural conservation practices to cost‐effective locations has long been of interest to watershed managers, yet its implementation cannot succeed without meaningful engagement of agricultural producers who are decision makers on the lands they farm. In this study, we engaged 14 west‐central Indiana producers and landowners in an adaptive targeting experiment. Interviews carried out prior to targeting provided rich spatial information on existing conservation practices as well as producers' preferences for future conservation projects. We targeted six of the most accepted conservation practices using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool and spatial optimization using a genetic algorithm approach. Fairly optimal conservation scenarios were possible with even the most limiting constraints of farmer‐accepted practices. We presented in follow‐up interviews a total of 176 conservation practice recommendations on 103 farm fields to 10 farmers whose lands were targeted for conservation. Primary findings indicated producers were interested in the project, were open to hearing recommendations about their lands, and expressed a high likelihood of adopting 35% of targeted recommendations. Farmers generally viewed the interview process and presentation of results quite favorably, and the interviews were found to build trust and make the targeting process more acceptable to them.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/112239/1/jawr12336.pd

Global Drivers of Land and Water Sustainability Stresses at Mid-century

We quantify the local stresses related to land, water and nitrate leaching (spatially resolved at ~10km x 10km cells) across the continental U.S. arising from expansion and intensification of agriculture between the present and 2050. The stresses are decomposed into those due to population and income growth, climate change, biofuel demands and productivity improvements – both in the U.S. and abroad. We also highlight how these local stresses depend on local climate, soils, nitrogen applications and irrigation practices and identify the tradeoffs associated with achieving individual sustainability objectives. For example, restricting irrigation expansion puts added pressure on non-irrigated cropland expansion and intensification of production in the remaining cropped areas. The tradeoffs, and in some cases synergies, between achieving environmental, food security and farm income objectives are explored

Evaluating Alternative Options for Managing Nitrogen Losses from Corn Production

This brief focuses specifically on agriculture in the Midwest where excess nitrogen presents a significant challenge for water quality – both locally and in the Gulf of Mexico. While the Gulf Hypoxia Task Force has called for a 45% reduction in watershed nitrate loading across the Corn Belt, our business as usual mid-century projections show this rate rising, rather than falling. Therefore, this brief explores policies aimed at reducing nitrogen losses from farms in the region. These include (among others) adoption of best management practices, drainage management, wetland restoration, cap and trade policies and modification to the biofuel mandates. We find that no single policy is capable of achieving the stated environmental goals, but, when implemented in concert, they could indeed be effective at reducing nitrate leaching rates across the Corn Belt. However, once again, there are tradeoffs associated with achieving this environmental objective and these are explored in this Policy Brief