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EVALUATING THE WATER QUALITY EFFECTIVENESS OF WATERSHED-SCALE SOURCE WATER PROTECTION PROGRAMS
Citation:
Shamblen, R. AND J R. Neal*. EVALUATING THE WATER QUALITY EFFECTIVENESS OF WATERSHED-SCALE SOURCE WATER PROTECTION PROGRAMS. Presented at AWWA 2003 Source Water Protection Symposium, Albuquerque, NM, 1/19-23/2003.
Description:
The US EPA Office of Research and Development, the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission (ORSANCO) and the Upper Big Walnut Creek Quality Partnership created a collaborative team of eleven agencies and universities to develop a methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of watershed-scale environmental conservation programs in the Upper Big Walnut Creek watershed in Ohio. The project will use the USDA's National Agricultural Pesticide Risk Analysis Model (NAPRA) to quantify and characterize atrazine's runoff risk and mass loss by three primary atrazine loss pathways for each crop field in the watershed prior to implementation of EQIP in 1999. Crop field management data to populate the NAPRA model will be derived from the watershed's five county USDA databases that track individual field-scale agricultural land use management practices. Detailed 1:24,000 scale soils type (SSURGO), slope and watershed boundaries will be derived from existing geo-spatial data provided by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. The total atrazine mass loss from each crop field will be summarized for the entire watershed and correlated with the atrazine load detected downstream in Hoover Reservoir, the water supply for the City of Columbus. The City of Columbus will provide its long-term historical atrazine water quality data and continue to monitor during the project period. This analysis will provide the baseline characterization to quantify the cause and effect relationship between atrazine runoff and elevated loading in the reservoir. Geographic Information System (GIS) will be used to compile the NAPA model data elements, map, identify and quantify critical atrazine runoff loss areas in the watershed. Results of the project will: identify areas where atrazine runoff is most susceptible, assess if current BMPs are implemented on identified critical fields and determine if the current conservation program is achieving water quality goals.