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Landscape Planning for Agricultural Nonpoint Source Pollution Reduction III: Assessing Phosphorus and Sediment Reduction Potential

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Abstract

Riparian buffers have the potential to improve stream water quality in agricultural landscapes. This potential may vary in response to landscape characteristics such as soils, topography, land use, and human activities, including legacies of historical land management. We built a predictive model to estimate the sediment and phosphorus load reduction that should be achievable following the implementation of riparian buffers; then we estimated load reduction potential for a set of 1598 watersheds (average 54 km2) in Wisconsin. Our results indicate that land cover is generally the most important driver of constituent loads in Wisconsin streams, but its influence varies among pollutants and according to the scale at which it is measured. Physiographic (drainage density) variation also influenced sediment and phosphorus loads. The effect of historical land use on present-day channel erosion and variation in soil texture are the most important sources of phosphorus and sediment that riparian buffers cannot attenuate. However, in most watersheds, a large proportion (approximately 70%) of these pollutants can be eliminated from streams with buffers. Cumulative frequency distributions of load reduction potential indicate that targeting pollution reduction in the highest 10% of Wisconsin watersheds would reduce total phosphorus and sediment loads in the entire state by approximately 20%. These results support our approach of geographically targeting nonpoint source pollution reduction at multiple scales, including the watershed scale.

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Acknowledgments

Support for this research was provided by a grant from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Kate Barrett assembled the point source discharge data and Maggie Buck calculated landscape metrics. We thank all the participants in the Wisconsin Buffer Initiative who helped articulate the goals that led to this research, particularly Pete Nowak, Steve Ventura, John Norman, Laura Good, and Christine Molling. Michael Burkart and Kristen Blann provided comments that substantially improved the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Limnology, University of Wisconsin, 680 N. Park Street, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Matthew W. Diebel, Jeffrey T. Maxted & M. Jake Vander Zanden

  2. US Geological Survey, Wisconsin Water Science Center, 8505 Research Way, Middleton, WI, 53562, USA

    Dale M. Robertson

  3. Statistics Department, University of Wisconsin, 1300 University Avenue, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Seungbong Han

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  1. Matthew W. Diebel
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  2. Jeffrey T. Maxted
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  4. Seungbong Han
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  5. M. Jake Vander Zanden
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Correspondence to Matthew W. Diebel.

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Diebel, M.W., Maxted, J.T., Robertson, D.M. et al. Landscape Planning for Agricultural Nonpoint Source Pollution Reduction III: Assessing Phosphorus and Sediment Reduction Potential. Environmental Management 43, 69–83 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-008-9139-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-008-9139-x

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