Source: UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA submitted to NRP
MODELING FOR TMDL DEVELOPMENT, AND WATERSHED BASED PLANNING, MANAGEMENT AND ASSESSMENT
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
COMPLETE
Funding Source
HATCH
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
0214350
Grant No.
(N/A)
Cumulative Award Amt.
(N/A)
Proposal No.
(N/A)
Multistate No.
S-1042
Project Start Date
Oct 1, 2007
Project End Date
Sep 30, 2013
Grant Year
(N/A)
Program Code
[(N/A)]- (N/A)
Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
G022 MCCARTY HALL
GAINESVILLE,FL 32611
Performing Department
Agricultural and Biological Engineering
Non Technical Summary
The Clean Water Act (CWA) is the cornerstone of surface water quality protection in the United States. (The Act does not deal directly with ground water or water quantity issues.) The statute employs a variety of regulatory and nonregulatory tools to sharply reduce direct pollutant discharges into waterways, finance municipal wastewater treatment facilities, and manage polluted runoff. These tools are employed to achieve the broader goal of restoring and maintaining the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nations waters so that they can support "the protection and propagation of fish, shellfish, and wildlife and recreation in and on the water." For many years following the passage of CWA in 1972, EPA, states, and Indian tribes focused mainly on the chemical aspects of the "integrity" goal. During the last decade, however, more attention has been given to physical and biological integrity. Also, in the early decades of the Acts implementation, efforts focused on regulating discharges from traditional "point source" facilities, such as municipal sewage plants and industrial facilities, with little attention paid to runoff from streets, construction sites, farms, and other "wet-weather" sources. Starting in the late 1980s, efforts to address polluted runoff have increased significantly. For "nonpoint" runoff, voluntary programs, including cost-sharing with landowners are the key tools. For "wet weather point sources" like urban storm sewer systems and construction sites, a regulatory approach is being employed. Evolution of CWA programs over the last decade has also included something of a shift from a program-by-program, source-by-source, pollutant-by-pollutant approach to more holistic watershed-based strategies. Under the watershed approach equal emphasis is placed on protecting healthy waters and restoring impaired ones. A full array of issues are addressed, not just those subject to CWA regulatory authority. Involvement of stakeholder groups in the development and implementation of strategies for achieving and maintaining state water quality and other environmental goals is another hallmark of this approach (EPA, 2003). The National Section 303(d) fact sheet (EPA, 2006) showed a total number of impaired waters reported as 38,698. The leading causes of these impairment were pathogens (13.37%), Mercury (13.30%), Sediment (10.61%), Metals (other than Mercury 9.92%), Nutrients (8.77%), Oxygen Depletion (7.01%), PH (5.41%), Cause Unknown Biological Integrity (4.35), and Temperature (4.31%) (EPA, 2006). Because of the immensity of the stream miles, lakes and estuaries involved and the jurisdictional differences within the impaired watersheds, tools are needed to better understand the causes and potential processes that can be used to restore and protect these water bodies. Combining remote sensing, monitoring, geographical information systems, and numerical simulation has been shown to be an effective and economic solution to these issues (R. Munoz-Carpena et al., 2006).
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
1120199205010%
1120210205020%
1120399205010%
1310199205010%
1310210205010%
1310399205010%
1330199205010%
1330210205010%
1330399205010%
Knowledge Area
133 - Pollution Prevention and Mitigation; 112 - Watershed Protection and Management; 131 - Alternative Uses of Land;

Subject Of Investigation
0210 - Water resources; 0199 - Soil and land, general; 0399 - Watersheds and river basins, general;

Field Of Science
2050 - Hydrology;
Goals / Objectives
Develop, improve and evaluate process based models and geospatial tools for watershed based planning and management. Develop tools (standards, framework, or protocol) to link the physical modeling with the economic aspects of watershed planning and management. Develop tools with social scientists and other project partners to help accelerate implementation of watershed planning and management through behavior change. Facilitate usability of watershed management planning models.
Project Methods
Objective 1: Develop databases and GIS that contain information needed to simulate water quality issues. States are required to develop schedules that monitor annually or on some rotational schedule to collect water quality data to address the CWA. Many times these agencies use simulation models to extend the reach of the data they have collected to suggest stream reaches that may have contributed to the impairment. As remote sensing capabilities improve we will get better resolution on elevations, climate variables, soils, and landuse practices. These data needs to be placed in databases and GIS formats that easily flow as inputs to our simulation models. Without these databases the watershed simulations have limited capability to calibration or usefulness. Objective 2: Develop rapid assessment tools that can be used to best place limited financial assistance available to address these issues. Because of the enormity of the watersheds and the many governmental agencies that have some input into the water quality issues of a watershed there is a need to develop tools that can give the watershed partners a quick view of potential sites in a watershed that have the greatest potential to contribute to the water quality issues. Objective 3. Evaluate watershed simulation models and their potential to give realistic and economic assessments on a range of scales from the watershed to the individual farm. The goal of this objective is to improve the ability of watershed models to assess the impact of agricultural practices on water quality. The output from these simulations needs to be easily understood and economically realistic.

Progress 10/01/11 to 09/30/12

Outputs
OUTPUTS: During the reporting period we developed outputs that match closely two of the original objectives of the project that resulted in 19 publications. Specifically: 1. Develop databases to simulate water quality issues. We developed a web-based application UF-HydroBase (http://hb20.ifas.ufl.edu/Public/Logon.aspx) based on an industry standard MS-SQL server as a repository for a wide range of hydrological and water quality data used in watershed analysis and modeling efforts. An innovative "Project-based" design was used with project members types (Project Manager, Data Managers, Team Member and Final User) with different roles (project design, data management, data upload, data mining). Project can be made public to other database users outside the team. The web-GUI contains allows quick graphical and statistical analysis of the data and downloads for further analysis. The application is hosted in a dedicated server at the University of Florida IT infrastructure and can be web-accessed externally by collaborators and for data uploading via a lightweight Windows .NET client. The exceptional capabilities of the system serve not only as an easy to use and accessible large data repository and analysis tool, but also as a data QA/QC tool when imbedded in field/watershed sampling protocols. 3. Evaluate watershed simulation models. We developed an irrigated watershed model (irrigation district in the Yakima River, WA) using a state-of-the-art java object-oriented model (QnD-Yakima) that combines field dynamics of water and pollutant transport, with BMPs (irrigation improvement and grass buffer strips at end of the field), irrigation canal routing, and calculation of water quality results at monitoring sites imposed by a TMDL (turbidity) in the region. The model incorporates farm/field economics to optimize BMPs to meet TMDL requirements, and a graphical game interface that allows for effective training of stakeholders this year. We have also developed spatial analysis tools to assess impacts of sea level rise on ecological system indicators (shore birds, protected bald cypress ecosystem) for coastal watershed management. We continued development of our field scale hydrological model (VFSMOD) to include mechanistic components for pesticide residue and degradation in grass buffers between events, and effects of a shallow water table in buffer effectiveness. These components have made possible the adoption of the model into the regulatory long-term environmental assessment for pesticides (US EPA, EU-FOCUS) to add the capability of analyzing the presence of a vegetative filter strip as a prescribed practice for certain components. Finally, we developed new methods and theories to improve current practices on model testing and evaluation. These encompassed application of state-of-the-art global sensitivity and uncertainty analysis in different modeling studies, and recently a new method for introducing a statistical test of significance for a commonly used statistic (Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient of efficiency) that serves to make model evaluation more objective. This method has ben implemented in a new publicly available, easy to use computer tool, FITEVAL. PARTICIPANTS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period. TARGET AUDIENCES: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.

Impacts
The methods and tools developed in this reporting period have been presented to different stakeholders through a variety of methods to ensure the impact of the results (workshops, public web-based distribution of model and analysis tools, publications, reports and presentations). During the last reporting period I chaired the S-1042 Regional Project and organized a well-attended annual project meeting (25 project members from 15 institutions) at the University of Florida in November 2012. The meeting allowed sharing of results and ideas for this Project and also to initiate the development of a new Regional project this year. Among specific impacts of our work during the past reporting period, VFSMOD (http://abe/ufl.edu/carpena/vfsmod) has been accepted as a reference tool for analysis and design of densely vegetated areas (grass and others) placed between disturbed lands (i.e. in agro-forestry, mining, road, construction, and urban settings) and a receiving water body. Vegetative filter strips are commonly used as a BMP in TMDL implementation plans to trap surface runoff contaminants like nutrients, sediment, and pesticides. The model has received renewed interest in the context of pesticide registration and licensing both in the U.S. and Europe. For registration of pesticides that do not pass higher-tier environmental exposure assessments, grass dense vegetation areas can be successful in limiting surface water pollution from pesticide treated areas (agricultural, roads, train tracks, urban landscape, etc.). The research has shown that the proper implementation of this practice requires consideration of complex interactions between physical (hydrology and sedimentology), chemical (pesticide chemistry) and human (land use) processes. In Europe the model is now part of SWAN 3.0 (http://www.york.ac.uk/environment/pesticides/#tab-2), the computer tool used by EU agencies and industry for long-term pesticide environmental assessments in the regulatory process. The application of modeling evaluation tools that our team pioneered in hydrology and water quality (global sensitivity and uncertainty analysis) is now becoming standard in many model applications. Our FITEVAL (http://abe.ufl.edu/carpena/software/fiteval.shtml) tool is the basis for collaboration with other key members of the modeling community to add procedures for model evaluation with uncertainties in the measured data and model outputs. We expect the modeling community will accept this tool soon as a standard

Publications

  • Barquin-Valle, L.P., K.W. Migliaccio, B. Schaffer, R. Munoz-Carpena, J. H. Crane, and Y.C. Li. 2011. Predicting soil water using groundwater level and the drained to equilibrium concept. Vadose Zone Journal 10(2):675-682. doi: 10.2136/vzj2010.0073
  • Kisekka, I., K. Migliaccio, R. Munoz-Carpena, B. Schaffer, Y. Li. 2013. Dynamic Factor Analysis of surface water management impacts on soil and bedrock water contents in southern Florida lowlands. J. of Hydrology (in press).
  • Ritter, A. and R. Munoz-Carpena. 2013. Predictive ability of hydrological models: objective assessment of goodness-of-fit with statistical significance. J. of Hydrology 480(1):33-45. doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2012.12.004
  • Munoz-Carpena, R. 2012. Continuous-simulation components for pesticide environmental assessment with VFSMOD: 1. VFS soil water dynamics between runoff events. Report 1 to the European Crop Protection Association AIM-Tec Team. Brussels, Belgium. April 2012. URL: http://abe.ufl.edu/carpena/vfsmod/FOCUSreports.shtml
  • Munoz-Carpena, R. 2012. Continuous-simulation components for pesticide environmental assessment with VFSMOD: 2. Pesticide surface mass balance. Report 2 to the European Crop Protection Association AIM-Tec Team. Brussels, Belgium. April 2012. URL: http://abe.ufl.edu/carpena/vfsmod/FOCUSreports.shtml
  • Lagerwall G., Kiker G., Munoz-Carpena R., Convertino M., James A., Wang N. 2012. A spatially distributed, deterministic approach to modeling Typha domingensis (cattail) in an Everglades wetland. Ecological Processes 1:10. doi: 10.1186/2192-1709-1-10
  • Convertino, M., A. Bockelie, G.A Kiker, R. Munoz-Carpena and I. Linkov. 2012. Shorebird patches as fingerprints of fractal coastline fluctuations due to climate change. Ecological Processes 1:9. doi: 10.1186/2192-1709-1-9
  • Linhoss, A.C., R. Munoz-Carpena, G. Kiker, D. Hughes. 2013. Hydrologic modeling, uncertainty, and sensitivity in the Okavango Basin: Insights for scenario assessment. Journal of Hydrologic Engineering. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)HE.1943-5584.0000755
  • Sabbagh, G.J., R. Munoz-Carpena, G.A. Fox. 2012. Distinct influence of filter strips on acute and chronic pesticide aquatic environmental exposure assessments across U.S. EPA scenarios. Chemosphere. doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2012.06.034
  • Convertino,M., R. Munoz-Carpena, G.A. Kiker, M.L. Chu-Agor, R. Fisher and I. Linkov. 2012. Epistemic uncertainty in predicted species distributions: Models and space-time gaps of biogeographical data. Ecol Modelling 240:1-15. doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2012.04.012
  • Gabriel, J.L., R. Munoz-Carpena and M. Quemada. 2012. The role of cover crops in irrigated systems: nitrate leaching and soil mineral nitrogen accumulation. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 155:50-61. doi:10.1016/j.agee.2012.03.021
  • Chu-Agor, M.L., R. Munoz-Carpena, G. A. Kiker, M. Aiello-Lammens, R. Akcakaya, M. Convertino, I. Linkov. 2012. Simulating the fate of Florida Snowy Plovers with sea-level rise: exploring potential population management outcomes with a global uncertainty and sensitivity analysis perspective. Ecol. Modelling 224(1):33-47. doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2011.10.021.
  • Convertino, M., G.A. Kiker, R. Munoz-Carpena, M.L. Chu-Agor, R.A. Fischer, I. Linkov. 2011. Scale and resolution-invariance of suitable geographic range for shorebird metapopulations. Ecological Complexity 8(4):364-376 . doi:10.1016/j.ecocom.2011.07.007.
  • Convertino, M., J.F. Donoghue, M.L. Chu-Agor, G.A. Kiker, R. Munoz-Carpena, R.A. Fischer, I. Linkov. 2011. Anthropogenic renourishment feedback on shorebirds: multispecies bayesian perspective. Ecological Engineering 37(8):1184-1194. doi:10.1016/j.ecoleng.2011.02.019
  • Mortl, A.., R. Munoz-Carpena, D. Kaplan and Y. Li. 2011. Calibration of a combined dielectric probe for soil moisture and porewater salinity measurement in organic and mineral coastal wetland soils. Geoderma 161(1-2):50-62. doi:10.1016/j.geoderma.2010.12.007.4774.0000281
  • Kaplan, D.A. and Munoz-Carpena, R. 2011. Complementary effects of surface water and groundwater on soil moisture dynamics in a degraded coastal floodplain forest. J. of Hydrology 398(3-4):221-234. doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2010.12.019.
  • Chu-Agor, M.L., R. Munoz-Carpena, G. Kiker, A. Emanuelsson and I. Linkov. 2011. Exploring sea level rise vulnerability of coastal habitats through global sensitivity and uncertainty analysis. Env. Model. & Software 26(5):593-604. doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2010.12.003.
  • Convertino M., Elsner J.B., Munoz-Carpena R., Kiker G.A., Martinez C.J., R.A. Fischer, I. Linkov. 2011. Do Tropical Cyclones Shape Shorebird Habitat Patterns Biogeoclimatology of Snowy Plovers in Florida. PLoS ONE 6(1): e15683. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0015683