Quantifying the impacts of the Conservation Effects Assessment Project watershed assessments: The first fifteen years

Moriasi, Daniel N.; Duriancik, Lisa F.; Sadler, E. J.; Tsegaye, Teferi; Steiner, Jean L.; Locke, Martin A.; Strickland, Timothy C.; Osmond, Deanna L.

doi:10.2489/jswc.75.3.57a

Cited by 23 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 146 publications

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“…Six of the 14 benchmark watersheds are part of the long‐term ARS EWN described herein. Special issues of the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation have been published at the 5‐, 10‐, and 15‐year marks of the CEAP program (Duriancik et al, 2008; Moriasi et al, 2020; Tomer et al, 2014). Moriasi et al's 15‐year retrospective study indicated that 13 of 21 ARS benchmark CEAP watersheds demonstrated measurable water quality improvements at subwatershed or watershed scales for at least one of the water quality constituents monitored.…”

Section: Major Accomplishments With Direct Societal Benefitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Six of the 14 benchmark watersheds are part of the long-term ARS EWN described herein. Special issues of the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation have been published at the 5-, 10-, and 15-year marks of the CEAP program (Duriancik et al, 2008;Moriasi et al, 2020;Tomer et al, 2014 (Barnett, 1958;Carreker & Barnett, 1953;Hendrickson et al, 1963).…”

Section: Validation Of the Benefits Of Conservation Spending By The Nrcs Supports Continued Investmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The USDA‐ARS Experimental Watershed Network: Evolution, Lessons Learned, Societal Benefits, and Moving Forward

Goodrich

Heilman

Anderson³

et al. 2021

Water Resources Research

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture‐Agricultural Research Service's (ARS) Experimental Watershed Network grew from Dust Bowl era efforts of the Soil Conservation Service in the mid‐1930s with the establishment of small experimental watersheds. In the 1950s, five watershed research centers with intensively instrumented watersheds at the scale of 100 to 700 km2 were established. Primary network research objectives were to quantify on‐site and downstream effects of conservation practices and develop rainfall‐runoff relationships for design of water conservation structures. With passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, research objectives have evolved to add a variety of observations relevant to the water quality issues. Many of the watersheds within the network have served, and continue to serve, as core validation sites for satellite sensors. As a result of the network's long history and intensive monitoring, coupled with mission‐driven research, a deep knowledge base of watershed processes has been developed. This has led to the extensive development and validation of numerous watershed models that are in widespread use today. The visionary investments in building and maintaining this network and associated scientific investigations for more than half a century have not only resulted in numerous high‐impact research accomplishments but also a wide array of accomplishments that directly benefit society. The ARS Experimental Watersheds formed the core of the Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP) as well as the recently established Long‐Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) network. LTAR will expand the mission of the ARS Watersheds Network to include agricultural intensification, maintaining or improving ecosystem services while enhancing rural prosperity.

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Section: Major Accomplishments With Direct Societal Benefitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Validation Of the Benefits Of Conservation Spending By The Nrcs Supports Continued Investmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The USDA‐ARS Experimental Watershed Network: Evolution, Lessons Learned, Societal Benefits, and Moving Forward

Goodrich

Heilman

Anderson³

et al. 2021

Water Resources Research

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“…To assess nutrient loading at the regional and national scales, APEX farm-scale estimates from cultivated cropland 1 https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs144p2_028976.pdf can be integrated with modelling outputs from SWAT for uncultivated land uses (Wang et al, 2011). The model has been selected by the United States Department of Agriculture to evaluate benefits from conservation practices at the plot, field, and edge-of-field scale (Williams et al, 2015;Moriasi et al, 2020). APEX cropland assessment in CEAP has also been coupled with SWAT to route the flows and nutrient loads to the outlet of large river basins (Kannan et al, 2011;Santhi et al, 2014).…”

Section: Agricultural Policy Environmental Extender Model-(apex)mentioning

confidence: 99%

A review of the current state of process-based and data-driven modelling: guidelines for Lake Erie managers and watershed modellers

et al. 2021

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We present a comprehensive evaluation of eleven process-based models to characterize the water cycle, nutrient fate and transport within a watershed context, and to find a robust and replicable way to optimize the modelling strategy for the Lake Erie watershed. Our primary objective is to review the conceptual/technical strengths and weaknesses of the individual models to reproduce surface runoff, groundwater, sediment transport, nutrient cycling, channel routing and collectively guide the management in Lake Erie Basin. Our analysis suggests that the available models either opted for simpler approximations of the multifaceted, non-linear dynamics of nutrient fate and transport and instead placed more emphasis on the advanced representation of the water cycle, or introduced a greater degree of biogeochemical complexity but simplified their strategies to recreate the role of critical hydrological processes. Notwithstanding its overparameterization problem, MIKE-SHE provides the most comprehensive 3D representation of the interplay between surface and subsurface hydrological processes with a fully dynamic description, whereby we can recreate the solute transport that infiltrates from the surface to the unsaturated soil layer and subsequently percolates into the saturated layer. Likewise, the physically based submodels designed to represent the sediment detachment and erosion/removal processes (DWSM, HBV-INCA, HSPF, HYPE and MIKE-SHE), offer a distinct alternative to USLE-type empirical strategies. The ability to explicitly simulate the daily plant growth (SWAT and APEX) coupled with a dynamic representation of soil P processes can be critical when evaluating the long-term watershed responses to various agricultural management strategies. While our propositions seem to favor the consideration of complex models that may lack the commensurate knowledge to properly characterize the underlying processes, we contend this issue can be counterbalanced by the joint consideration of simpler empirical models, under an ensemble framework, that can both constrain the plausible values of individual processes and validate macroscale patterns. Finally, our study discusses critical facets of the watershed modelling work in Lake Erie, such as the role of legacy P, the challenges in reproducing spring-freshet or event-flow conditions, and the dynamic characterization of water/nutrient cycles under the non-stationarity of a changing climate.

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“…Water quality efforts in the United States have been hindered by inadequacies in best management practice (BMP) implementation and coordination at watershed scales, resulting in a lack of spatially effective placement of BMPs to efficiently reduce nutrient and sediment loss (Moiaisi et al., 2020; Tomer & Locke, 2011). Efficiently and effectively guiding the implementation of proven BMPs at watershed scales is one of the primary challenges for state‐level nutrient reduction strategies (Christianson et al., 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Agricultural Conservation Planning Framework Financial and Nutrient Reduction Tool: A planning tool for cost effective conservation

et al. 2022

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We have developed an add‐on tool for use with the Agricultural Conservation Planning Framework (ACPF) that features a multistate financial analysis and field‐scale nitrogen (N) reduction tool for use when analyzing different ACPF conservation scenarios. Financial and expected field‐scale N loss data are used to calculate total long‐term cost and cost effectiveness of various conservation plans. Unique to the ACPF Financial and Nutrient Reduction Tool is the ability to identify individual treatment areas for each practice evaluated, allowing users to create combinatorial conservation planning scenarios drawing from multiple ACPF‐identified conservation practices. Financial data account for direct long‐term annualized costs for best management practice (BMP) installation and management in Iowa and Minnesota. Opportunity costs of BMPs that retire cropland are spatially determined according to weighted‐average crop productivity indices and land rent relationships. The tool quantifies the N requirements for each field, based on 6‐yr land‐use data, and evaluates the proportion of N likely to be lost from the field as nitrate load via leaching. Financial analyses that can be accomplished by using the ACPF are illustrated in case study watershed scenarios in Iowa and Minnesota. In Iowa, featured scenarios range from 26 to 31% reduction in total nitrate, for a total cost between US$0.580 million and $2.3 million per year, respectively. In Minnesota, example scenarios range from 28 to 51% total nitrate reduction, for total costs of $1.7 million to $2.1 million per year. Tradeoffs in BMP selection related to N reduction outcome and cost are also demonstrated.

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Quantifying the impacts of the Conservation Effects Assessment Project watershed assessments: The first fifteen years

Cited by 23 publications

References 146 publications

The USDA‐ARS Experimental Watershed Network: Evolution, Lessons Learned, Societal Benefits, and Moving Forward

The USDA‐ARS Experimental Watershed Network: Evolution, Lessons Learned, Societal Benefits, and Moving Forward

A review of the current state of process-based and data-driven modelling: guidelines for Lake Erie managers and watershed modellers

The Agricultural Conservation Planning Framework Financial and Nutrient Reduction Tool: A planning tool for cost effective conservation

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