Historic Water Quality Concerns High nutrients Impacts on downstream Cutler Reservoir

1. Utah’s Conservation Effectiveness AssessmentProject: Taking Lessons Learned to the Next Level This research is supported by CSREES CEAP Competitive Watershed Grant UTAW-2004-05671 Nancy Mesner (USU Dept Watershed Science), Doug Jackson-Smith (USU Dept of Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology), David Stevens and Jeff Horsburgh (Dept of Civil and Environmental Engineering) Little Bear CEAP Project Background RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS Remote Sensing to Detect Impact of Riparian BMPs Rates of BMP Implementation & Maintenance • Original Implementation: • 83% of individual BMPs successfully implemented • 32% of farms implemented all BMPS • 60% of farms implemented more than 50% of BMPs • Ongoing Maintenance: • 21% of implemented BMPS had been abandoned. • (1/3 were on farms that were no longer active. • 2/3 were on active farms but were no longer used) • Conclusion: • 2/3 of all originally contracted BMPs were STILL in use. Analysis of Historic Water Quality Records and Implementation of Continuous Flow Monitoring System • Historic Water Quality Concerns • High nutrients • Impacts on downstream Cutler Reservoir • Causes included poor management of riparian corridors and uplands, poor manure management, flood irrigation, • Best Management Practices implemented from 1990-2000 • Animal waste structures and nutrient management • Riparian area and stream channel protection, off-stream watering • Sprinkler irrigation systems and management • Improved Grazing management • Project Goals • Determine whether publicly-funded programs to reduce phosphorus loadings from nonpoint sources into surface waters in the Little Bear River watershed are effective; • Examine the strengths and weaknesses of different water quality monitoring programs; and • Make recommendations to stakeholders to ensure that future agricultural management efforts are targeted towards the most effective and socioeconomically viable BMPs. • Results of 3 Years of Continuous Measurement of Proxy WQ Indicators: • High variability in nutrient runoff due to seasonal and weather events make traditional grab-sampling methods very unreliable. • Development of integrated system of continuous flow and surrogate monitors can be accomplished at reasonable costs. • Measures of turbidity can be a reliable surrogate for Total Suspended Solids (TSS) and Total Phosphorus (TP) • Historic WQ data lessons: • Trends suggest WQ benefits from project • YET  DATA RECORD WAS INSUFFICIENT because of spatial and temporal variability IMPACT AND USE OF CEAP RESEARCH IN UTAH, WESTERN REGION, AND NATION • Key Publications: • Jackson-Smith, D., E. de la Hoz, M. Halling, J. McEvoy and J. Horsburgh. (2010). “Measuring conservation program BMP implementation and maintenance at the watershed scale,” The Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 65(6):363-373. • Horsburgh, J. S., A. Spackman Jones, D. G. Tarboton, D. K. Stevens, N. O. Mesner (2009), A sensor network for high frequency estimation of water quality constituent fluxes using surrogates, Environmental Modeling & Software 25(9): 1031-1044. doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2009.10.012. • Lessons Learned • Not all Conservation BMPs are Successfully Implemented or Maintained • Important lessons can be gained by conducting follow-up assessments • Traditional WQ monitoring systems are not well equipped to assess BMP impacts • Need to design monitoring systems around specific BMP objectives • Need to identify & quantify major sources of variability in dynamic systems • Need to understand pollutant pathways and transformation • Utilization of our Research • Scholarly Contributions • Presentation at 20+ professional meetings, 4 theses and dissertations, 10 manuscript targeted to peer reviewed journals • Creation of watershed monitoring “TestBed” • Led to new NSF and US-EPA support to extend continuous flow network; availability of real-time data on public website • Development of Watershed Monitoring Guidebook • Distributed regionally and nationally • Impacts on State Non-Point Source Programs • Presentations to numerous local audiences, Utah Water Quality Conference, leaders in state Depts. of Agric. & Env Quality • CEAP team contracted to do Utah NPS program evaluation • Partnerships with new watershed teams for extending this work http://littlebearriver.usu.edu