Project Number: 3622-12130-004-00
Project Type: Appropriated

Start Date: Jan 26, 2007
End Date: Jan 25, 2012

Objective:
The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) have agreed to work together, as part of the national Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP) initiative to quantify the environmental benefits of conservation practices at the watershed scale. The project plan detailed in this document represents one of 12 ARS CEAP watersheds established under the national CEAP initiative to address conservation and environmental research issues. Objectives of the project are to: 1) develop and implement a data system to organize, document, manipulate, and compile water, soil, management, and socio-economic data for assessment of conservation practices at field, farm, and watershed scales for the Mark Twain Lake watershed; 2) measure and quantify water quality, water quantity, and soil quality effects of conservation practices at the field, farm, and sub-watershed scale for the Mark Twain Lake; and 3) validate models, quantify uncertainties in model output, and conduct analyses with hydrologic models at field, farm, and watershed scales, and develop methodologies and decision support tools for application on watersheds within the Mark Twain Lake watershed.

Approach:
This research will focus on developing tools and techniques to quantify the impact of implementing conservation practices within a watershed in the most economically efficient manner to achieve sustainable and targeted reductions of nutrients, sediment, herbicide, and pathogen loadings to the Salt River/Mark Twain Lake basin. The research encompasses the following approaches: 1) participation in the development of the STEWARDS database; 2) conduct water quality monitoring to characterize the hydrologic balance and nutrient/chemical loading to Mark Twain Lake; 3) conduct studies at field and plot scales to determine the effectiveness of various conservation practices and cropping systems to reduce nutrient, sediment, and herbicide transport; 4) develop a real-time PCR (RT-RCR) method for quantitation of pathogenic water-borne bacterial species; 5) use the SWAT model to evaluate conservation practices and conservation systems abilities to reduce nutrient, sediment, pesticide, and pathogen loadings in agricultural watersheds; and 6) apply the SWAT model to improve surface water quality assessment and planning.