92 Landscapes in the Anthropocene I

Monday, 23 October 2017
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ballroom 6A

TIME IS RUNNING OUT TO MEET WATER QUALITY OBJECTIVES IN MIDWESTERN AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPES UNDERGOING RAPID ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE: SOUND SCIENCE IS FUNDAMENTAL TO SOUND POLICY

Paper number: 92-8
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 10:50 AM – 11:20 AM

Authors

Abstract

Agricultural intensification and climatic trends in many intensively managed landscapes have contributed to hydrologic regime shifts and a cascade of changes to water quality and river ecosystems. Informing management and policy to mitigate undesired consequences requires a careful analysis that includes process-based and data-based inference and conceptual/physical modeling at a range of spatio-temporal scales. Here we present a comprehensive analysis of climatic, hydrologic, and ecologic trends in the Minnesota River basin, a 45,000 km2 basin undergoing agricultural intensification and suffering from declining water quality and aquatic biodiversity. We show that: (a) reversing environmental degradation rests on properly managing the underlying driver of change, i.e., increased streamflows and reduced water storage due to agricultural drainage practices; (b) strategic positioning of even minimal upstream water storage results in multiple non-linear improvements in downstream water quality; and (c) “optimization” between ecosystem services and economic considerations requires a systems approach that sees beyond a single stream to the whole watershed, favoring the adoption of minimal complexity rather than highly parameterized models for scenario evaluation and comparison. Science-based approaches informing management and policy are urgent in this region calling for a new era of watershed management in response to accelerating stressors and the desire to meet both economic and environmental goals.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 49, No. 6

doi: 10.1130/abs/2017AM-303727

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