Review of best management practice efficiencies in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley
Robert Kröger, Andrew Sharpley, Michell Perez
Agricultural best management practices (BMPs) can help reduce nutrient and sediment concentrations and loads leaving farm fields, which in turn can reduce negative impacts on downstream aquatic systems. For nearly three decades, significant federal investment in technical and financial assistance has been provided to implement farm BMPs. But few conservation programs attempt to estimate the amount of nutrient and sediment reduction resulting from cost-shared practices, let alone potential positive effect on local or regional water quality. In the same context, conservation practices are being advocated, implementation is being encouraged, and environmental stewardship being emboldened towards the 2015 Gulf of Mexico restoration efforts of 45% reduction in TN and TP. Often times, resource managers are basing decisions on limited nutrient data sets and have limited tools to help with strategy development. Similarly, high profile modeling efforts (SUSTAIN, SULIS, etc.) are only utilizing mathematically derived BMP efficiency data, or best professional judgment, instead of site or state specific percentages of effectiveness from validated, scientifically defensible data. The current study provides a review of the scientific literature to determine nutrient reduction efficiency percentages for BMPs in row-crop agriculture within the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley (LMAV), an area with high delivery of both nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) to the Gulf of Mexico. The review consisted of multiple agricultural and biological database searches, a BMP effectiveness tool, and outreach to scientists. It is imperative that region specific BMP efficiencies be created for effective water quality improvement.
Outputs
- Kröger, R., Perez, M., Walker, S., Sharpley, A. 2011. Review of best management practice efficiencies in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley. In review—Journal of Soil and Water Conservation.
- Kröger, R., Sharpley, A., and Poganski, B. 2011. Best management practices as tools for nutrient reductions: what do we really know? Poster given at the National Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry meeting, Boston, MA, November 14-17th.
Gulf of Mexico Research
- Gulf of Mexico Research
- Efficacy of Best Management Practices as an Approach to Water Resource Conservation in the Mississippi Delta Region
Completed Projects
- MASGC - Decreasing nitrate-N loads to coastal ecosystems with innovative drainage management strategies in agricultural landscapes
- EPA-GMPO: Evaluation of innovative, low-technology water management structures as important tools in nutrient reduction strategies
- Monitoring for short term success of BMP structures in the Harris and Porters Bayou 319 watersheds for altering hydrology and reducing sediment and nutrient concentrations.
- BMP evaluations in Wolf Lake
- Understanding nitrate delivery within the Big Sunflower River, Mississippi: implications for nutrient loads to the Gulf of Mexico
- Assessing complexity of hydrology, nutrient inputs and phosphorus dynamics with agricultural drainage sediments
- Drainage canal vegetation management plan for the city of Jonesboro
- EPA 319h Wolf Lake turbidity and total suspended sediments
- Hill Country Aquaculture
- Sport Fisheries Restoration in Puerto Rican Reservoirs - Water Quality
- Denitrification in agricultural drainage ditches under various hydrologic management regimes
- Understanding the influence of Annamox and denitrification in agricultural drainage ditch sediments in potential nitrogen removal
Review of best management practice efficiencies in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley- Integrative Aquatic Research on Southfarm
- Soil media compositions for water quality improvements and stormwater management in urban flow-through facilities
- Oxbow lake fisheries and water quality
- Evaluating changes in diversity and functional gene abundance of denitrifying microbe communities to nutrient concentrations in run-off following the implementation of low-grade weirs in agricultural drainage systems
- Examining the role of organic carbon amendments as a possible best management practice to improve nitrogen removal in agricultural drainage ditches
- Assessment of evaporation rates of tailwater recovery and on-farm storage reservoirs to establish the potential use of these BMPs to reduce agricultural impacts to water quality while promoting surface water re-use in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley
- Monitoring changes in nutrient and sediment concentrations and loads to downstream aquatic systems to assess the use of cover crops as an in-field BMP in a HUC 12 watershed
- REACH (Research & Education to Advance Conservation & Habitat)
