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ARS Home » Plains Area » Temple, Texas » Grassland Soil and Water Research Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #224451
Title: The MANAGE database: Nutrient load and site characteristic updates and runoff concentration data

Author
item Harmel, Daren
item QIAN, SONG - DUKE UNIVERSITY
item RECKHOW, KEN - DUKE UNIVERSITY
item CASEBOLT, PAMELA - TX STATE SOIL/WATER BOARD

Submitted to: Journal of Environmental Quality
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/26/2008
Publication Date: 10/23/2008
Citation: Harmel, R.D., Qian, S., Reckhow, K., Casebolt, P. 2008. The MANAGE database: Nutrient load and site characteristic updates and runoff concentration data. Journal of Environmental Quality. 37(6):2403-2406.

Interpretive Summary: The “Measured Annual Nutrient loads from AGricultural Environments” (MANAGE) database was developed to be a publically available, easy-to-use database of site characteristic and field-scale nutrient runoff data. The original version of MANAGE, which drew heavily from an early 1980’s compilation of nutrient export data, created an electronic database with nutrient load data and corresponding site characteristics from 40 studies on agricultural (cultivated and pasture/range) land uses. In the current update, N and P load data from 15 additional studies of agricultural runoff were included along with N and P concentration data for all 55 studies. The database now contains 1677 watershed years of data for various agricultural land uses (703 for pasture/rangeland, 333 for corn, 291 for various crop rotations, 177 for wheat/oats, and 4-33 years for barley, citrus, vegetables, sorghum, soybeans, cotton, fallow, and peanuts). Across all land uses, annual runoff loads averaged 14.2 kg/ha for total N and 2.2 kg/ha for total P. On average, these losses represented 10-25% of applied fertilizer N and 4-9% of applied fertilizer P. Although such summary statements provide interesting generalities across a wide range of land use, management, and climatic conditions, regional crop-specific analyses should be conducted to guide regulatory and programmatic decisions. With this update, MANAGE contains data from a vast majority of published peer-reviewed N and P export studies on agricultural land uses in the US under natural rainfall-runoff conditions, and thus provides necessary data for modeling and decision-making related to agricultural runoff. The current version can be downloaded at http://www.ars.usda.gov/spa/manage-nutrient.

Technical Abstract: The “Measured Annual Nutrient loads from AGricultural Environments” (MANAGE) database was developed to be a readily-accessible, easily-queried database of site characteristic and field-scale nutrient export data. The original version of MANAGE, which drew heavily from an early 1980’s compilation of nutrient export data, created an electronic database with nutrient load data and corresponding site characteristics from 40 studies on agricultural (cultivated and pasture/range) land uses. In the current update, N and P load data from 15 additional studies of agricultural runoff were included along with N and P concentration data for all 55 studies. The database now contains 1677 watershed years of data for various agricultural land uses (703 for pasture/rangeland, 333 for corn, 291 for various crop rotations, 177 for wheat/oats, and 4-33 years for barley, citrus, vegetables, sorghum, soybeans, cotton, fallow, and peanuts). Across all land uses, annual runoff loads averaged 14.2 kg/ha for total N and 2.2 kg/ha for total P. On average, these losses represented 10-25% of applied fertilizer N and 4-9% of applied fertilizer P. Although such statistics produce interesting generalities across a wide range of land use, management, and climatic conditions, regional crop-specific analyses should be conducted to guide regulatory and programmatic decisions. With this update, MANAGE contains data from a vast majority of published peer-reviewed N and P export studies on homogeneous agricultural land uses in the US under natural rainfall-runoff conditions, and thus provides necessary data for modeling and decision-making related to agricultural runoff. The current version can be downloaded at http://www.ars.usda.gov/spa/manage-nutrient.