Twenty years of conservation effects assessment in the St. Joseph River watershed, Indiana

Authors: Williams, Mark; LIVINGSTON, STANLEY - Retired ARS Employee; DURIANCIK, LISA - Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS, USDA); Flanagan, Dennis; Frankenberger, James - Jim; GILLESPIE, ROBERT - Indiana University-Purdue University; Gonzalez, Javier; HUANG, CHI HUA - Retired ARS Employee; Penn, Chad; Smith, Douglas; Renschler, Chris - Christian

Submitted to: Journal of Soil and Water Conservation
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/21/2022
Publication Date: 1/10/2023
Citation: Williams, M.R., Livingston, S.J., Duriancik, L.F., Flanagan, D.C., Frankenberger, J.R., Gillespie, R.B., Gonzalez, J.M., Huang, C., Penn, C.J., Smith, D.R., Renschler, C.S. 2023. Twenty years of conservation effects assessment in the St. Joseph River watershed, Indiana. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation. 78(1):12A-19A. https://doi.org/10.2489/jswc.2023.1204A.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2489/jswc.2023.1204A

Interpretive Summary: The St. Joseph River is one of the main tributaries to the Maumee River and Lake Erie. The USDA-Agricultural Research Service (ARS) National Soil Erosion Research Laboratory (NSERL) has been conducting cutting-edge research on water sediment, nutrient, and pesticide losses from agricultural lands and testing novel conservation practices for decreasing these losses in the St. Joseph River watershed for the past 20 years (2002-2022). This article describes the history of the USDA-ARS NSERL water quality monitoring, summarizes and highlights key research findings, and outlines successes, challenges and future directions of research. Key research findings include: 1) prevalence of pesticides in drainage water depends on the specific compound, season, and management practices; 2) subsurface tile drainage and drainage ditches play an important role in nutrient transport from agricultural landscapes; 3) blind inlets and phosphorus removal structures decrease sediment, phosphorus, and pesticide losses from tile-drained landscapes; 4) ecological assessments reveal the importance of habitat and water chemistry to aquatic organisms and how conservation practices can enhance aquatic biota abundance and diversity; and 5) computer simulation modeling at field and watershed scales shows the impact of conservation under current and future climates. With 20 years of research in the rearview mirror, the NSERL plans to leverage these long-term datasets to tackle both ongoing and newly emerging research questions such as climate change and legacy nutrients in the future.

Technical Abstract: The St. Joseph River is one of the main tributaries to the Maumee River and Lake Erie. The USDA-Agricultural Research Service (ARS) National Soil Erosion Research Laboratory (NSERL) has been conducting cutting-edge research on water sediment, nutrient, and pesticide losses from agricultural lands and testing novel conservation practices for decreasing these losses in the St. Joseph River watershed for the past 20 years (2002-2022). This article describes the history of the USDA-ARS NSERL water quality monitoring, summarizes and highlights key research findings, and outlines successes, challenges and future directions of research. Key research findings include: 1) prevalence of pesticides in drainage water depends on the specific compound, season, and management practices; 2) subsurface tile drainage and drainage ditches play an important role in nutrient transport from agricultural landscapes; 3) blind inlets and phosphorus removal structures decrease sediment, phosphorus, and pesticide losses from tile-drained landscapes; 4) ecological assessments reveal the importance of habitat and water chemistry to aquatic organisms and how conservation practices can enhance aquatic biota abundance and diversity; and 5) computer simulation modeling at field and watershed scales shows the impact of conservation under current and future climates. With 20 years of research in the rearview mirror, the NSERL plans to leverage these long-term datasets to tackle both ongoing and newly emerging research questions such as climate change and legacy nutrients in the future.