HR: 13:45h
AN: H32D-01 INVITED     [PDF]
TI: Improving Water Quality With Conservation Buffers
AU: * Lowrance, R
EM: lorenz@tifton.usda.gov
AF: Southeast Watershed Research Laboratory USDA-ARS, P.O. Box 946, Tifton, GA 31794 United States
AU: Dabney, S
EM: SDABNEY@npa.ars.usda.gov
AF: National Sedimentation Laboratory USDA-ARS, P.O. Box 1157, Oxford, MS 38655 United States
AU: Schultz, R
EM: rschultz@iastate.edu
AF: Iowa State University, Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management, Ames, IA 50011-1021 United States
AB: Conservation buffer technologies are new approaches that need wider application. In-field buffer practices work best when used in combination with other buffer types and other conservation practices. Vegetative barriers may be used in combination with edge-of-field buffers to protect and improve their function and longevity by dispersing runoff and encouraging sediment deposition upslope of the buffer. It's important to understand how buffers can be managed to help reduce nutrient transport potential for high loading of nutrients from manure land application sites, A restored riparian wetland buffer retained or removed at least 59 percent of the nitrogen and 66 percent of the phosphorus that entered from an adjacent manure land application site. The Bear Creek National Restoration Demonstration Watershed project in Iowa has been the site of riparian forest buffers and filter strips creation; constructed wetlands to capture tile flow; stream-bank bioengineering; in-stream structures; and controlling livestock grazing. We need field studies that test various widths of buffers of different plant community compositions for their efficacy in trapping surface runoff, reducing nonpoint source pollutants in subsurface waters, and enhancing the aquatic ecosystem. Research is needed to evaluate the impact of different riparian grazing strategies on channel morphology, water quality, and the fate of livestock-associated pathogens and antibiotics. Integrating riparian buffers and other conservation buffers into these models is a key objective in future model development.
DE: 1803 Anthropogenic effects
DE: 1815 Erosion and sedimentation
DE: 1890 Wetlands
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting