Adoption potential of nitrate mitigation practices: an ecosystem services approach

Abstract

Nitrate pollution from agricultural drainage has caused water quality concerns worldwide, but there are several promising technologies to help mitigate this environmental degradation. While these practices primarily aim to improve water quality, they may also provide other 'additive' benefits or ecosystem services and the awareness of such benefits may influence their potential to be adopted by farmers. To investigate the impact that perceived ecosystem services has on a practice's adoption potential, we used a mixed methods approach consisting of a literature review, producer surveys, and a group discussion to explore farmer interest in and perceived benefits (on-farm and regional) of seven subsurface drainage nitrate reduction practices (controlled drainage, bioreactors, wetlands, nitrogen management rate, nitrogen management timing, cover crops, and diversified crop rotations). The nitrogen management practices were shown to be accessible and realistic options for water quality improvement as they elicited high interest and had the highest level of compatibility. However, these practices did not provide many other complementary ecosystem services. Conversely, wetlands had a high literature review-derived ecosystem service count, but were considered to have low compatibility, and survey respondents indicated less interest in this practice. The practice of cover cropping showed more moderate, yet consistently positive results for all factors.

Quantifying Water Pollution Sources in a Small Tile‐drained Agricultural Watershed

“…Agricultural drainage systems had fulfilled and still do an important role in landscape cultivation and expansion of agricultural and other human activities. However, bearing in mind the qualitative and quantitative status of related water bodies, there is an increasing need either to modify some functions of the so far single‐purpose agricultural drainage systems (being the majority in the Czech Republic), to incorporate various edge‐of‐drainage outlet water purifying elements or to make selected parts of the drainage systems inoperable in order to retain or slow down the drainage runoff and strengthen self‐cleaning processes in water related environment . These arrangements comprises e.g.…”

“…These arrangements comprises e.g. controlled drainage mechanisms, diverse ditch weirs, tile blinding plugs, natural or constructed wetlands, small ponds, denitrification walls or bioreactors .…”

Vegetated canals mitigate nitrogen surplus in agricultural watersheds

“…Denitrification in the canal network may represent a relevant N sink, but this element of the agricultural landscape is seldom considered in management practices (Kellogg et al, 2010;Lassaletta et al, 2012;Castaldelli et al, 2013). Common management techniques to control agricultural N surplus include the limitation of fertilizer addition and the treatment of wastes from animal holding facilities (Christianson et al, 2014;Garnier et al, 2014). Vegetated wetlands have been extensively used to mitigate agricultural runoff, but they were mostly reclaimed in human-impacted watersheds (Racchetti et al, 2010).…”

Synthesizing Conservation Motivations and Barriers: What Have We Learned from Qualitative Studies of Farmers’ Behaviors in the United States?

“…For example: "Many of the farmer participants discussed how they had altered their management practices because they had seen the benefits of cover crops (e.g., erosion prevention, improvements to soil health and yield boosts) … many producers who had been using cover crops noted that they had not experienced yield declines but instead saw improvements to their yield" (Roesch-McNally et al 2017). Other practices described as improving yields, and thereby increasing profitability, included spring fertilizer application and no-till (e.g., Christianson et al 2014;Roesch-McNally, Arbuckle, and Tyndall 2018;Xie 2014).…”

“…Cover crops were discussed similarly. For example, cover crop termination and residue incorporation, due to their demand on farmers' time and wet conditions during spring, were inconvenient and risky for farmers (Christianson et al 2014). In contrast, several studies discussed reducing farm management effort as a motivating factor.…”