You are here:
Benefits of Best Management Practices for Agricultural Subsurface Tile Drainage
Citation:
Mitchell, M., Kenneth J. Forshay, T. Newcomer-Johnson, J. Christensen, W. Crumpton, S. Richmond, B. Dyson, Timothy J. Canfield, M. Helmers, D. Lemke, M. Lechtenberg, AND D. Green. Benefits of Best Management Practices for Agricultural Subsurface Tile Drainage. Interagency Ecological Restoration Quality Committee (IERQC) Webinar Series, Cincinnati, OH, September 29, 2022.
Impact/Purpose:
Agricultural tile drainage systems have allowed for widespread increases in crop production area and yields throughout the US Corn Belt but have also contributed to wetland habitat loss and ongoing nutrient pollution. Management practices that can reduce nutrient losses from tile drainage systems while also contributing habitat or other co-benefits are needed in order to enhance these agricultural systems for the diverse needs of stakeholders. This presentation will review multiple best management practices for treating subsurface drainage and introduce some of the stakeholder-driven research taking place to understand the full suite of benefits and tradeoffs associated with their installation in a changing landscape.
Description:
Nature-based solutions and best management practices that support the reduction of nitrate pollution from agricultural tile drains to downstream receiving waters can provide economic and habitat benefits as well as a number of other ecosystem goods and services. These systems include constructed wetlands, saturated buffers, and a number of management practices designed to enhance nutrient retention; but the lack of comprehensive supporting information about the diverse benefits and costs are an ongoing obstacle to implementation of these solutions. By engaging with stakeholders and collaborating with the stakeholder groups involved in tile drain management, we can work to better identify and elucidate the obstacles and knowledge gaps to implementation for a broader suite of best management practices. This work will produce a prioritized list of science and research needs, identified by the collaborative team, and will focus research efforts on prioritized questions to engage fully in solution driven research. This will be beneficial both to support agency, state, and local partners as well as provide insight to form collaborative research efforts with our stakeholders that support sustainable value-added systems.