Citation:

Nietch, C. East Fork Watershed Study: Overview. ROCS-Net, Cincinnati, OH, April 04 - 06, 2022.

Impact/Purpose:

Present an overview of the East Fork Watershed Study to the ROCS-Net audience

Description:

U.S. EPA’s, Office of Research and Development’s (ORD’s) East Fork Watershed Study (EFWS) centers attention on the integration of water quality modeling and monitoring, excess nutrient management, and the partnership needed to effectively implement nutrient reduction for water quality improvement in the East Fork of the Little Miami River Watershed’s impaired streams and multi-use reservoir that is plagued by harmful algal blooms. Thirty-one stream sites and seven lake sites are routinely sampled within the system, which occupies 500 mi2 of southwestern Ohio, draining mostly agricultural lands (64% land cover) within five different counties. The watershed houses significant urban area, 17 permitted wastewater plants, a few livestock operations, and over 11,000 septic systems, 34% of them projected to be failing. The East Fork Watershed Cooperative (EFWCoop), a multi-agency, multi-levels of governance, and multidisciplinary partnership was formed during the initial stages of the design of the EFWS. This partnership is used to leverage mitigation effort and supports ORD economics research into market-based approaches for reducing nutrients in watersheds. Water quality trading feasibility has been a central theme for the economics research. Additionally, the integration of watershed-scale methods and approaches also has supported the study of aquatic life endpoints for establishing nutrient thresholds. The EFWS is currently in the process of demonstrating how these thresholds can be linked back to the distribution of nutrient sources for specifying spatially explicit nutrient loading allocations and reduction requirements for TMDL development. Modeling methods have been used to help guide watershed-level planning and implementation effort informed by relative costs and at relevant scale. Through ORD’s EFWS and the work of the EFWCoop, lessons fostering a more efficient and coordinated use of funds for nutrient reduction are being learned, documented, and transferred to other like-minded partnerships.   

Record Details: