Control of non-point source (NPS) water pollution remains elusive in the United States (US). Many US water-bodies which have been primarily impacted by NPS pollution have not achieved water quality goals set by Clean Water Act. Technological advances have been made since 1972, yet many water resources fail to meet water quality standards. Common Pool Resources Theory is considered to understand the human dimension of NPS pollution by exploring anthropogenic activities superimposed upon dynamic ecosystems. In the final analysis, priority management zones (PMZs) for best management practice (BMP) implementation must have buy-in from land managers. TWAIM is an iterative systems thinking approach to planning, collecting landscape and land use information and communicating systems understanding to stakeholders. Hydrologic pathways that link the physical, chemical and biological characteristics influence processes occurring in a watershed which drive stream health and ecological function. With better systems understanding and application by technical specialists, there is potential for improved stakeholder interaction and dialogue which could then enable better land use decisions. Issues of pollutant origin, transport, storage and hydraulic residence must be defined and communicated effectively to land managers within a watershed context to observe trends in water quality change. The TWAIM concept provides a logical framework for locally-led assessment and a means to communicate ecohydrologic systems understanding over time to the key land managers such that PMZs can be defined for BMP implementation. Full article

The plurality of conservation and environmental viewpoints often challenge community leaders and government agency staff as they seek to engage citizens and build partnerships around watershed planning and management to solve complex water quality issues. The U.S. Midwest Heartland region (covering the states of Missouri, Kansa, Iowa, and Nebraska) is dominated by row crop production and animal agriculture, where an understanding of perceptions held by residents of different locations (urban, rural non-farm, and rural farm) towards water quality and the environment can provide a foundation for public deliberation and decision making. A stratified random sample mail survey of 1,042 Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska residents (54% response rate) reveals many areas of agreement among farm, rural non-farm, and those who live in towns on the importance of water issues including the importance and use of water resources; beliefs about water quality and perceptions of impaired water quality causality; beliefs about protecting local waters; and environmental attitudes. With two ordinal logistic models, we also found that respondents with strong environmental attitudes have the least confidence in ground and surface water quality. The findings about differences and areas of agreement among the residents of different sectors can provide a communication bridge among divergent viewpoints and assist local leaders and agency staff as they seek to engage the public in discussions which lead to negotiating solutions to difficult water issues. Full article

The Future Midwest Landscape (FML) project is part of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s new Ecosystem Services Research Program, undertaken to examine the variety of ways in which landscapes that include crop lands, conservation areas, wetlands, lakes, and streams affect human well-being. The goal of the FML project is to quantify current and future ecosystem services across the region and to examine changes expected to occur as a result of the growing demand for biofuels. This study is one of several pilots taking place under the umbrella of the FML research project. In this study, the USDA Annualized Agricultural Non-Point Source Pollution (AnnAGNPS) model was applied to the East Fork Kaskaskia River watershed (289.3 km²) located in the Kaskaskia River Basin within the Upper Mississippi River Basin in Illinois. The effect of different spatial resolutions on model performance was investigated by comparing the observed runoff with the AnnAGNPS simulated results. Alternative future scenarios such as meeting future biofuel target were also simulated and analyzed. All delineations of the study area (coarser to finer) produced satisfactory results in simulating monthly and annual runoff. However, the size of the delineation does impact the simulation results. Finer delineations better represented the actual landscape and captured small critical areas that would be homogenized in coarser delineation. Those small critical areas are important to target to achieve maximum environment benefit. Simulations of alternative future scenarios showed that as corn production increases to meet future biofuel needs, total nitrogen loss increases. For this watershed, total N loss would be more than doubled if converting all corn/soybean rotation (15,871.2 ha) to continuous corn comparing with the base year total N loss which is 11.2 kg/ha. Conservation practices are needed to reduce total nitrogen loss from the watershed. This study provides an important foundation for the larger FML region modeling effort by addressing challenging FML landscape modeling issues such as model selection, need for further model development, and spatial resolution. Full article