Location: Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory
Project Number: 8042-66000-001-000-D
Project Type: In-House Appropriated
Start Date: Jun 1, 2016
End Date: May 31, 2021
Objective:
Objective 1: Assess the status and trends of the Lower Chesapeake Bay agroecosystem through measurements and modeling.
Subobjective 1.1 Establish long-term data streams for the LCB-LTAR project to assess agroecosystem status and trends.
Sub-objective 1.2 Assess data streams as a function of spatial differences in land use.
Objective 2: Develop and test remote sensing methods to assess crop conditions, conservation practices, and nutrient use efficiency.
Subobjective 2.1: Improve remote sensing methods for assessing crop conditions using plant phenology at field to watershed scales.
Subobjective 2.2: Develop remote sensing methods to assess crop residue cover and soil tillage intensity at field to watershed scales.
Subobjective 2.3: Develop and test methods using high-spatial-resolution remote sensing from small unmanned aircraft systems for precision agriculture.
Subobjective 2.4: Retrieve leaf optical properties by remote sensing foliar water content to improve estimation of plant nitrogen status.
Subobjective 2.5: Use LiDAR, Synthetic Aperture Radar, and Landsat to map and characterize wetlands and riparian buffers.
Objective 3: Quantify environmental processes within agricultural landscapes to evaluate ecosystem services and best management practices.
Subobjective 3.1: Improve measurement and modeling approaches to describe agrochemical emissions and transport from agricultural operations.
Subobjective 3.2: Characterize the influence of canopy structure on the deposition of agrochemicals to riparian buffers.
Subobjective 3.3: Quantify the spatial and temporal variability and assess the fate of atmospheric ammonia on the Delmarva Peninsula.
Subobjective 3.4: Assess the effects of wetland hydroperiod on carbon storage.
Subobjective 3.5: Quantifying impacts of watershed characteristics and crop rotations on winter cover crop nitrate uptake capacity within agricultural watersheds using the SWAT model.
Approach:
Much of the research will be conducted within the LCB-LTAR study area (Appendix 2) in support of the LTAR network goals. Two types of studies will be performed as part of the network, monitoring for long-term trends and conducting experiments to identify, quantify, and understand the underlying agroecosystem processes causing the trends. Thus, measurements of soil, water, and air quality are a priority. Within the LCB-LTAR, the Choptank River Watershed on the Delmarva Peninsula (Figure 3) has been a research site since 2004 for the USDA-NRCS Conservation Effects Assessment Program (CEAP) (Hively et al. 2011; Maresch et al. 2008; McCarty et al. 2008; Niño de Guzmán et al. 2012; Richardson et al. 2008; USDA-NRCS 2011; Tomer and Locke 2011; Tomer et al. 2014, Whithall et al. 2010). The approaches include remote sensing, in-situ monitoring, long term sampling scenarios, and modeling efforts. The Optimizing Production Inputs for Economic and Environmental Enhancement (OPE3) experimental site consists of a 22-ha production field and adjacent riparian area that has been studied by this team since 1998. OPE3 is an outdoor laboratory at the USDA-ARS Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC) to explore energy, water, nutrient, and agrochemical processes.
