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Overview of MRAT and STAC recommendations for monitoring small watersheds
Katie ForemanApril 22, 2010NTWG meetingUSGS –Baltimore Office
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Both reports highlight the importance of small watershed studies
Small watershed studies provide the best opportunities to assess the effectiveness of management actions and understand the multiple factors affecting water-quality change. less varied pollution
sources Homogenous land cover
and landuse practices can be more easily tracked
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4 MRAT recommendations for studying small watersheds (2009 report)
• Synthesize lessons learned in past and on-going small watershed studies.
• The CBP NTN should locate a sentinel long-term nontidal network site in selected small watershed study areas with increased implementation.
• Partner with small watershed study researchers and provide synoptic surveys and other monitoring support to small watershed studies to support evaluation of management actions.
• Work with partners to encourage an increase in data-management efforts that support the evaluation of management actions.
• 1) assemble and document historical information on land use, point sources, population, and agricultural activity, 2) create a sustainable process for tracking watershed information in the future, and 3) make this information available to support assessment, research, and modeling efforts.
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9 STAC recommendations for monitoring small watersheds (2010 report)
• Study the effects of conservation practices in watersheds that discharge relatively high amounts of agricultural nutrients to Chesapeake Bay.
• Focus on measuring agricultural nitrogen inputs and discharges.
• Study smaller watersheds (10-40 km2) within the larger areas of high agricultural impact.
• Make a long-term commitment (5 -10+ yr) to four essential tasks in all study watersheds: maintaining conservation practices, assembling and sharing spatially explicit data on conservation practices and other agricultural activities, watershed monitoring, and data analysis.
• Seek innovative arrangements to overcome institutional and legal barriers to assembling and sharing data on conservation practices and agricultural activities.
• To quantify effects on nitrogen discharge, use inexpensive, low-frequency (e.g., quarterly) sampling of baseflow nitrate from many study watersheds selected to represent a wide range of levels of conservation practices.
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9 STAC recommendations for monitoring small watersheds (con’t)
• To quantify effects on phosphorus and sediment discharge, use continuous automated water quality monitoring to capture the important effects of episodic high flows.
• Sample a few well-studied watersheds before and after significant new practice implementation can be achieved, or
• Sample a few paired watersheds where significant new implementation can be directed to experimental watersheds AND excluded from control watersheds.
• Build partnerships within the study watersheds to implement and maintain
the conservation practices, to collect data on conservation practices and agricultural activities, and to conduct the watershed monitoring. And
• Build partnerships to coordinate among study watershed efforts and to analyze resulting data.