Grantee Research Project Results
2023 Progress Report: Valuing Water Quality Improvements in Heartland Reservoirs
EPA Grant Number: R840467Title: Valuing Water Quality Improvements in Heartland Reservoirs
Investigators: North, Rebecca L , Ohler, Adrienne , McCann, Laura M , Moore, Trisha , Sheshukov, Aleksey
Institution: University of Missouri - Columbia , Kansas State University
EPA Project Officer: Packard, Benjamin H
Project Period: September 1, 2022 through August 31, 2025
Project Period Covered by this Report: September 1, 2022 through August 31,2023
Project Amount: $740,014
RFA: Water Quality Benefits (2022) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Water , Water Quality
Objective:
To provide willingness to pay (WTP) estimates for water quality improvements and aquatic resources in Midwest reservoirs.
Progress Summary:
The team has expanded to include two new postdoctoral fellows: Dr. Jeeban Panthi at Kansas State University and Dr. Yousef Alkilany at University of Missouri. Dr. Panthi is dedicating his full efforts in collaborating with Drs. Moore and Sheshukov to develop watershed models and integrate them with the lake models. The ultimate goal is to simulate the water quality of Table Rock Reservoir and the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. The team has been gathering essential data for the watershed model setup. This includes information on topography, land cover, soil, climate, streamflow, and stream water quality in the respective watersheds. The KSU team has been actively involved in establishing a SWAT+ model designed to replicate streamflow and water quality in the upstream region of the reservoirs. The delineation process adheres to the USGS HUC-10 delineation, ensuring a systematic separation of contributions from each watershed to specific segments of the reservoirs. During the watershed delineation and river network generation, the team integrated bathymetry data from Table Rock Reservoir into their topography dataset, capturing intricate details in the process. The modeling team used the EPA's Hydrologic and Water Quality System (HAWQS) model--a web-based hydrology and watershed model powered by SWAT. While acknowledging certain constraints within the HAWQS model, such as parameter estimation relying on a larger model and limited control over input datasets like periodic landcover changes, as well as the absence of embedded future climate datasets, the team chose to persist with their desktop model using SWAT+. Nevertheless, it's worth noting that the HAWQS model remains valuable for gaining insights into the functional relationships between input variables and water quality attributes, essential information for designing tools for the choice experiment and survey.
The socio-economics team, including Drs. Alkilany, Ohler, and McCann have been working on designing the choice experiment and survey, and incorporating choice attributes that are informed by the water models developed by the KSU team. They have performed a literature review of studies on the willingness-to-pay for water quality, and choice experiment methods for recreational demand at water bodies. They developed a pilot test of a conjoint analysis framework through an open source developed by Qualtrics and prepared a draft of the experimental design. They have begun survey development with outreach to three online platforms for quotes on pricing and likely sample sizes in particular zip codes in Missouri with low population density. They also developed a focus group questionnaire of the Lakes of Missouri Volunteers Program (LMVP) to determine how the public discusses water quality characteristics of lakes, and concerns regarding these recreational lakes. Volunteers provided comments on how residents and visitors think about water quality and what language they believe makes sense to the public. A summary of the results of the questionnaire has been shared with the LMVP group.
The limnology team at the University of Missouri, led by Dr. North, have established water quality stations at tributaries to Lake of the Ozarks, to supplement existing USGS gauge stations. They are taking continuous flow measurements and sample biweekly for water quality parameters. They sampled Lake of the Ozarks and Table Rock four times over the summer field season and are currently conducting laboratory analyses on frozen water samples.
Future Activities:
The modeling team will continue their efforts to advance watershed modeling including the identification of climate model datasets for the future, specific to the US Midwest. They will downscale them to a regional scale for integration into both the watershed and lake models. They are progressing in developing methods of communicating water quality changes using the SWAT model of the Table Rock watershed. Within the upcoming six months, they anticipate achieving a fully calibrated watershed and water quality model for Table Rock. The socio-economics team is designing the survey and working to finalize water quality indexes and attributes collaboratively with the limnologists and modelers. In 2024, they will implement the first of three surveys to visitors of Branson, Missouri, to assess WTP estimates for water quality of both users and non-users of the reservoir. The next two surveys will focus on Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri and Marion Reservoir in Kansas, as models for those water bodies are developed. In the spring of 2024, the limnology team will deploy a continuous water quality monitoring buoy on Table Rock. It will utilize 'smart' technologies, in which sensors monitor a variety of water quality parameters that will allow real time assessment of the concentration of cyanobacteria (via phycocyanin sensors), implicated in harmful algal blooms with the potential to produce toxins. The lake data buoy will include: a CB-450 data buoy cellular telemetry and EXO3 multi-parameter sonde with sensors for temperature, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, chlorophyll (proxy for phytoplankton biomass), and phycocyanin (proxy for cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms [cyanoHABs]) that will be deployed at three water depths, representing the epilimnion, metalimnion, and hypolimnion of the lake. This data will greatly improve our lake models.
Journal Articles:
No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 1 publications for this projectSupplemental Keywords:
Watershed, Water Quality, Climate, Landcover/management Change, Integrated Model, Community-based, Preferences, Socio-economic.Relevant Websites:
University of Missouri: Limnology Lab Exit
The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.