A Review of Effectiveness of Agricultural BMPs on Nutrient Reduction in the Mississippi River Basin
Citation:
Yuan, Y. AND K. Flahive. A Review of Effectiveness of Agricultural BMPs on Nutrient Reduction in the Mississippi River Basin. ASABE 2018, Detroit, MI, July 29 - August 01, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
Presented at ASABE 2018.
Description:
Increased nutrient fluxes from the Mississippi River Basin (MRB) have been linked to increased occurrences of seasonal hypoxia in the northern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) (The NSTC, 2000; USEPA, 2014; Alexander et al., 2008; Rabalais et al., 2001). Studies additionally show that more than 70% of the nitrogen and phosphorus delivery to the GOM are from the agricultural lands (Alexander et al., 2008; McCrackin, et al., 2014). Targeted best management practices (BMPs) and agricultural conservation practices can reduce and prevent applied nutrients from running off fields, which in turn prevent nutrient export to the GOM. Various studies on effectiveness of BMPs on reducing nutrient from agricultural fields have been conducted; but, due to the specificity of site conditions and experimental settings of these studies, the identified effectiveness are varied. To obtain a systematic understanding of BMPs’ mitigation efficacy, a comprehensive literature review of available studies of BMPs/agricultural conservation practices on nutrient reduction at the MRB was conducted. Results from studies conducted under different experimental settings and site conditions were compared, integrated and synthesized to obtain general insights. Vegetative buffer and conservation tillage are effective BMPs in reducing nutrient loss with reduction rates ranging from 15% to 69%, the land retirement achieves the highest reduction on total nitrogen and total phosphorous. Reviewing and synthesizing results of available studies on BMP efficiency on nutrient reduction is significant because it would lead to improved understanding and quantitative knowledge of the effectiveness of various BMPs on water quality, more details on this review will be presented in this presentation.
