Source: Foundation at New Jersey Institute of Technology submitted to
MANAGING CRITICAL SOURCE AREAS FOR ENHANCING ECOSYSTEM SERVICES IN AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPES
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
TERMINATED
Funding Source
AFRI COMPETITIVE GRANT
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
0227848
Grant No.
2012-67019-19348
Project No.
NJW-2011-03976
Proposal No.
2011-03976
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Program Code
A1431
Project Start Date
Mar 1, 2012
Project End Date
Jun 30, 2016
Grant Year
2012
Project Director
Qiu, Z.
Recipient Organization
Foundation at New Jersey Institute of Technology
(N/A)
Newark,NJ 07102
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Ecosystem degradation especially deterioration in water quality and biological conditions in streams is often attributed to land use changes in terrestrial landscape over a range of spatial and temporal scales. Healthy ecosystems and streams have to be achieved by deliberately managing the land use changes in landscapes. For example, stormwater management that mitigates urbanization impacts on stream integrity has been largely implemented to limit and diminish the impacts of impervious cover. Regardless of how the riparian zones are defined, riparian restoration and management has been pervasive from the federal riparian management initiative to the municipal ordinance. However, impervious cover and riparian zones alone are likely incomplete surrogates for evaluating stream health. A comprehensive strategy that integrates the thorough understanding of human disturbances on in-stream response coupled across multiple landscape scales would be required to improve the biological integrity of stream ecosystems. The project explores the interrelationship between land use changes in landscape and the downstream water quality and biological degradation by incorporating new advances in hydrological science and technology. The project conducts field monitoring and watershed modeling across different physiographic regions, natural conditions and gradient in hydro-ecological sensitivity to understand how the fundamental physical and/or biogeochemical processes that are primarily governed by the variable source area hydrology control the transformation, movement, and storage of water, nitrogen, and phosphorus in agricultural landscapes and develop scientifically defensible threshold values that differentiate landscape in terms of hydro-ecological sensitivity. The project also develops a set of land use indicators including the percentage of urban and agricultural lands and impervious cover in the hydro-ecologically sensitive areas that quantifies agricultural landscape changes and develop a regional landscape model that quantify the relationship between landscape changes and the losses in ecosystem services in term of downstream water quality degradation and aquatic health impairment. Through the landscape model, this project tests the hypotheses that the critical source areas in landscapes disproportionally contribute to ecosystem degradation and identify the threshold in land use intensity in terms of the presence of critical source areas in landscapes that lead to ecosystem degradation and therefore to provide the empirical evidence for natural resource protection and critical source area management. The project results support more targeting-oriented conservation efforts or precision conservation to improve the cost-effectiveness of the conservation efforts that manage the landscape to enhance ecosystem services.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
20%
Applied
80%
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
1120399205050%
1120399209050%
Knowledge Area
112 - Watershed Protection and Management;

Subject Of Investigation
0399 - Watersheds and river basins, general;

Field Of Science
2050 - Hydrology; 2090 - Statistics, econometrics, and biometrics;
Goals / Objectives
Natural hydrological and ecological processes coupled with human interactions through active land use management form various hydro-ecological hotspots or critical source areas (CSAs) in agricultural landscapes. CSAs are areas in landscape where hydro-ecologically sensitive areas (HESAs) and pollutant sources coincide. HESAs are the areas in landscapes with high propensity for generating runoff that could potentially transport pollutants to streams. Anthropogenic pollutants generally originate from the areas in landscapes with high-intensity land use such as on agricultural and urban lands. Our hypothesis is that, relative to the rest of the landscape, CSAs contribute disproportionately to ecosystem degradation such as poor water quality and impaired aquatic ecosystem integrity. The overall goal of the proposed project is to determine the threshold (change-point) in land use intensity in terms of the presence of CSAs in landscapes that leads to ecosystem degradation. This goal is achieved through two intertwined research objectives: (1) to assess scientifically defensible thresholds in hydro-ecological sensitivity that defines HESAs and CSAs; and (2) to determine threshold levels in land use intensity that lead to ecosystem degradation. The first objective is accomplished by carefully designed field monitoring and watershed modeling across different geographic regions, natural conditions and gradients in hydro-ecological sensitivity; and the second objective by developing and applying a multilevel regional landscape model called the CSA-based Land Use Intensity/Stream Integrity Model (CSA-LUISIM). The regional landscape model directly relates the presence of CSAs in landscapes to downstream water quality and biological conditions. The project results will help resource managers better distinguish agricultural landscapes for taking spatially-discrete land use management actions to protect water quality and aquatic ecosystem health and therefore enhance ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes.
Project Methods
The project is implemented in New Jersey and New York where Variable Source Area (VSA) hydrology has been verified as a dominant hydrological process. The hydro-ecologically sensitivity in the study areas is measured by a modified topographic index (TI), which measures the propensity of generating runoff in the landscapes following the VSA hydrology. The first research objective is achieved through field monitoring and watershed modeling in three watersheds with on-going monitoring activities in New York and three newly selected watersheds in New Jersey. Using geographic positioning systems (GPS) and TDR probes, soil moisture is measured at least twice a month during the project duration along the selected transects in the six watersheds. The field data is then used to determine the degree of saturation for each storm, which in turn is interpreted to estimate a threshold of TI value separating runoff generating areas (saturated) from non-generating areas (soil moisture < saturated). Watershed modeling is conducted to verify the selection of the TI threshold value that define HESAs and CSAs by comparing the streamflow and water quality simulated by a VSA-based watershed model and observed through field monitoring. The The second specific objective is achieved through development of a multilevel regional landscape model in Northern New Jersey where there are diverse conditions in agroecosystems from unimpaired watersheds in the Highlands physiographic province to some severely impaired watersheds in the Piedmont physiographic province. The TI threshold value developed in the first objective is used to define HESAs in the region. A set of land use indicators including the percentage of urban and agricultural lands and impervious cover in the HESAs is developed to quantify agricultural landscape changes. a Bayesian multilevel or hierarchical regression is used to build the regional landscape model that quantifies the relationship between landscape changes and the losses in ecosystem services in term of downstream water quality degradation and aquatic health impairment. Through the landscape model, this project tests the hypotheses that the CSAs in HESAs disproportionally contribute to ecosystem degradation and identify the threshold in land use intensity in terms of the presence of CSAs within HESAs that lead to ecosystem degradation. The model results therefore provide the empirical evidence for HESAs protection and CSAs management.

Progress 03/01/16 to 06/30/16

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audiences we have been trying to reach during this period and the whole project duration are the academic and professional audiences through publications. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?We offerred training to one postdoc and one graduate student at NJIT and one graduate student at Cornell. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Through publications in this period. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will continue revise those submitted manuscripts for publication and hope develop additional grant proposals.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? This is the last period of the project. We can confidentally say we have achieved a lot as we are trying to achieve those goals. We developed 20 manuscripts for journal publications based on various data and results generated from this project. However, we cannot say we achieved the goals as stated in this project especially our project didn&#39;t identify a clear threshold on either soil topographic index or land use intensity in critical source areas. We the goals still deserve additional research in large scale and different areas.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Qiu, Z. Assessing Water Quality Impacts of Land Use and Management in a Suburban Watershed in New Jersey, USA. Environmental Engineering and Management Journal. Vol. 15, No. 7. July 2016, pp. 1551-1560.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Qiu, Z., M. Dosskey and Y. Kang. Choosing Between Alternative Placement Strategies for Conservation Buffers Using Borda Count. Landscape and Urban Planning. Volume 153. September 2016, pp. 66-73.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Qiu, Z., M. Dosskey and Y. Kang. Data on Four Criteria for Targeting the Placement of Conservation Buffers in Agricultural Landscapes. Data in Brief. Volume 7. June 2016, pp. 1254-1257.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Giri, S., Z. Qiu. Understanding the Relationship of land uses and water quality in Twenty First Century: A review. Journal of Environmental Management. Vol. 173. May 2016, pp. 41-48.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2016 Citation: Giri, S., Z. Qiu, T. Prato and B. Luo. An Integrated Approach for Targeting Critical Source Areas to Control Nonpoint Source Pollution in Watersheds. Water Resources Management. Published on online first at doi:10.1007/s11269-016-1470-z.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2016 Citation: Hofmeister, K.L., C.L. Anderson, C.B. Georgakakos, B.P. Buchanan, S. Riha, M.T. Walter. 2016. Identifying landscape areas prone to generating runoff in Central New York Agricultural Fields. Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies (accepted).
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2016 Citation: Giri, S., Z. Qiu, and Z. Zhang. Empirically Assessing the Impact of Land Use in Landscapes on Downstream Water Quality. Journal of Hydrology. Submitted.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2016 Citation: Qiu, Z., S. Giri, and L. Wang. SWAT Modeling of Pathogen Fate and Transport in a Suburban Watershed with Mixed Land Uses. Journal of Hydrology. Submitted.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Submitted Year Published: 2016 Citation: Giri, S., Z. Qiu, Z. Zhang, and J.G. Kennen. Assessing the Impacts of Land Uses in Landscapes on Stream Integrity from a Hydrologically Sensitive Area Perspective. Water Resources Research. Submitted.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Submitted Year Published: 2016 Citation: Qiu, Z., A. Pennock, S. Giri, C. Trnka, B. Buchanan, X. Du, H. Wang, M.T. Walter. Assessing Soil Moisture Pattern Using a Soil Topographic Index in a Humid Region. Water Research. Submitted.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Submitted Year Published: 2016 Citation: Wu, Y., S. Giri, and Z. Qiu. Understanding the Spatial Distribution of Hydrologic Sensitive Areas in the Landscape Using Soil Topographic Index Approach. International Soil and Water Conservation Research. Submitted.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Submitted Year Published: 2016 Citation: Giri, S., Z. Qiu, Z. Zhang. A Novel Technique for Establishing a Soil Topographic Index Threshold in Defining Hydrologically Sensitive Areas in Landscapes. Journal of Hydrology. Submitted.


Progress 03/01/12 to 06/30/16

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audiences we have been trying to reach during this period and the whole project duration are the academic andprofessional audiences through publications. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?We offerred training to one postdoc and one graduate student at NJIT and one graduate student at Cornell. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Through publications in this period. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? This is the last period of the project. We can confidentally say we have achieved a lot as we are trying to achieve those goals.We developed 20 manuscripts for journal publications based on various data and results generated from this project.However, we cannot say we achieved the goals as stated in this project especially our project didn&#39;t identify a clear thresholdon either soil topographic index or land use intensity in critical source areas. We the goals still deserve additional research inlarge scale and different areas. The results of this project have demonstrated the need for whole-watershed analyses, rather than farm-by-farm or field-by-field, for developing strategies that prevent placing potential pollutants in parts of the landscape especially prone to generating storm runoff. This is because some farms are simply located in parts of a watershed with higher risks of storm runoff than other farms. We found that as much as 70% of the rainfall-runoff is generated on approximately 10% of the land in a watershed. Thus, if land conservation programs like CRP or CREP could be targeted at these areas, there is a tremendous opportunity to also mitigate nonpoint source pollution.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Giri, S., Z. Qiu. Understanding the Relationship of land uses and water quality in Twenty First Century: A review. Journal of Environmental Management. Vol. 173. May 2016, pp. 41-48.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Qiu, Z. Assessing Water Quality Impacts of Land Use and Management in a Suburban Watershed in New Jersey, USA. Environmental Engineering and Management Journal. Vol. 15, No. 7. July 2016, pp. 1551-1560.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Qiu, Z., M. Dosskey and Y. Kang. Choosing Between Alternative Placement Strategies for Conservation Buffers Using Borda Count. Landscape and Urban Planning. Volume 153. September 2016, pp. 66-73.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Qiu, Z., M. Dosskey and Y. Kang. Data on Four Criteria for Targeting the Placement of Conservation Buffers in Agricultural Landscapes. Data in Brief. Volume 7. June 2016, pp. 1254-1257.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2016 Citation: Giri, S., Z. Qiu, T. Prato and B. Luo. An Integrated Approach for Targeting Critical Source Areas to Control Nonpoint Source Pollution in Watersheds. Water Resources Management. Published on online first at doi:10.1007/s11269-016-1470-z.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2016 Citation: Hofmeister, K.L., C.L. Anderson, C.B. Georgakakos, B.P. Buchanan, S. Riha, M.T. Walter. 2016. Identifying landscape areas prone to generating runoff in Central New York Agricultural Fields. Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2016 Citation: Giri, S., Z. Qiu, and Z. Zhang. Empirically Assessing the Impact of Land Use in Landscapes on Downstream Water Quality. Journal of Hydrology. Submitted.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Submitted Year Published: 2016 Citation: Qiu, Z., S. Giri, and L. Wang. SWAT Modeling of Pathogen Fate and Transport in a Suburban Watershed with Mixed Land Uses. Journal of Hydrology. Submitted.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Submitted Year Published: 2016 Citation: Giri, S., Z. Qiu, Z. Zhang, and J.G. Kennen. Assessing the Impacts of Land Uses in Landscapes on Stream Integrity from a Hydrologically Sensitive Area Perspective. Water Resources Research. Submitted.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Submitted Year Published: 2016 Citation: Qiu, Z., A. Pennock, S. Giri, C. Trnka, B. Buchanan, X. Du, H. Wang, M.T. Walter. Assessing Soil Moisture Pattern Using a Soil Topographic Index in a Humid Region. Water Research. Submitted.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Submitted Year Published: 2016 Citation: Wu, Y., S. Giri, and Z. Qiu. Understanding the Spatial Distribution of Hydrologic Sensitive Areas in the Landscape Using Soil Topographic Index Approach. International Soil and Water Conservation Research. Submitted.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Submitted Year Published: 2016 Citation: Giri, S., Z. Qiu, Z. Zhang. A Novel Technique for Establishing a Soil Topographic Index Threshold in Defining Hydrologically Sensitive Areas in Landscapes. Journal of Hydrology. Submitted.


Progress 03/01/15 to 02/29/16

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audiences we have been trying to reach during this period and the whole project duration are the academic and professional audiences through publications and professional presentations, local environmental organizations through personal contacts and seminars, local governments and farmers through personal contacts and seminars. During the process, one postdoc, two graduate students, two graduate students and one visiting scholar were trained. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The project provide learning and training to two undergraduate, one visiting scholars and ons postdoc at NJIT and one graduate student at Cornell through field data collection and in-house data processing and analysis. Some of the results were also used to teach in an environmental studies course at NJIT. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The results are disseminatd through peer-reviewed publications, professional conferences and seminars. The results have also been disseminated to the agricultural communities in central NY (farmers, Soil and Water Conservation Districts, etc.) through invited presentations and local envronmental and conservation organizations in NJ (such as NJ Highlands Council and Raritan Headwaters Assocation). The results have also been disseminated through invited seminar presentations in several universities and research institutes in China. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will continue to revise the manuscripts for publication and develop and submit several additional manuscripts for publications based on the projec results.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The results of this project have demonstrated the need for whole-watershed analyses, rather than farm-by-farm or field-by-field, for developing strategies that prevent placing potential pollutants in parts of the landscape especially prone to generating storm runoff. This is because some farms are simply located in parts of a watershed with higher risks of storm runoff than other farms. We found that as much as 70% of the rainfall-runoff is generated on approximately 10% of the land in a watershed. Thus, if land conservation programs like CRP or CREP could be targeted at these areas, there is a tremendous opportunity to also mitigate nonpoint source pollution. The preliminary results from the regional models generally support our hypothesis is that, relative to the rest of the landscape, CSAs contribute disproportionately to ecosystem degradation such as poor water quality and impaired aquatic ecosystem integrity.However, the degree of support is not as strong as what we expected, which implies that hydrological and pollutant transport processes in watersheds are much more complicated than what variable source area hydrology suggested due to the complex interactions between natural processes and human interventions. Further investigation at larger scale and different sites might be needed to further test the hypothesis and provide stronge theoretical background for policy intervention.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Hofmeister, K.L., C.B. Georgakakos, M.T. Walter. 2016. A simple runoff threshold model based on topographic wetness indices and soil moisture for central New York agricultural fields. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 7(4): 289-300. [doi:10.2489/jswc.71.4.289]
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Wang, H. and Z. Qiu. Agricultural Best Management Practices for Nonpoint Pollution Control in the U.S. and Their Potential Applications in China. Rural Economy and Science and Technology. Vol. 24, No. 11. 2013. [in Chinese]
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Qiu, Z., 2015. Validation of a locally revised topographic index in central New Jersey, USA. Water Vol. 7, November 2015, pp. 6616-6636.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2015 Citation: Giri, S., Z. Qiu. Understanding the Relationship of land uses and water quality in Twenty First Century: A review. Journal of Environmental Management. submitted.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2015 Citation: Qiu, Z., M. Dosskey and Y. Kang. Choosing Between Alternative Placement Strategies for Conservation Buffers Using Borda Count. Landscape and Urban Planning. Submitted.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2015 Citation: Giri, S., Z. Qiu, T. Prato and B. Luo. An Integrated Approach for Targeting Critical Source Areas to Control Nonpoint Source Pollution in Watersheds. Water Resources Management. Submitted.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2015 Citation: Hofmeister, K.L., C.L. Anderson, C.B. Georgakakos, B.P. Buchanan, S. Riha, M.T. Walter. 2016. Identifying landscape areas prone to generating runoff in Central New York Agricultural Fields. Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies. Submitted.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2016 Citation: Giri, S., Z. Qiu, and Z. Zhang. Empirically Assessing the Impact of Land Use in Landscapes on Downstream Water Quality. Journal of Hydrology. Submitted.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2015 Citation: Qiu, Z., S. Giri, and L. Wang. SWAT Modeling of Pathogen Fate and Transport in a Suburban Watershed with Mixed Land Uses. Journal of Hydrology. Submitted.


Progress 03/01/14 to 02/28/15

Outputs
Target Audience:Provide learning and training to two undergraduate, two visiting scholarsand ons postdocat NJIT and two graduate students at Cronell through field data collection and in-house data processing and analysis. Present research preliminary results to local environmental agencies such as the Raritan Headwaters Association and the New Jersey Highlands Council and tothe professional conferences such as the2014 Soil and Water Conservation Society annualmeeting and various seminars in different universities in China. Several manuscriptshave submitted toprofessional journals for pubications. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Provide learning and training to two undergraduate, two visiting scholarsand ons postdocat NJIT and two graduate students at Cronell through field data collection and in-house data processing and analysis. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The results are disseminatd through peer-reviewed publications professional conferences and seminars. The results have also been disseminated to the agricultural communities in central NY (farmers, Soil and Water Conservation Districts, etc.) through invited presentations and local envronmental and conservation organizations in NJ (such as NJ Highlands Council and Raritan Headwaters Assocation). The results have also been disseminated through invited seminar presentations in several universities and research institutes in China. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will primarily focus on analyze the data and publish those results through peer-reviewed publications. The specific tasks include 1. Identify the threshold in STI that leads to runoff generation; 2. Develop watershed models that predict runoff generation; 3. Develop regional model to test the hypothesis as stated in the project goals.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We continued the collection of soil moisture field data from 5 agricultural sites in NY and 23 sites in NJ. The data were used to develop the correlation between calculated soil topographic index (STI) and measured soil moisture to understand the crtical change in soil topographic index that leads to runoff generation. These data were used in the development of a regionalized watershed model (central NY, northern PA, and northern/eastern NJ) that predicts runoff generating areas within a watershed.We also delineated29 large watersheds and over 200 small watersheds in New Jersey that safisifed certain criteria and processed andcollected all necessary data includingSTIs based on the LiDAR DEM, hydrological senstive areas (HSAs), land use matrics in the watersheds and HSAs in watersheds, water quality data and biological monitoring data to build the regional model.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Qiu, Z., T. Prato and H. Wang. Assessing long-term water quality implications of reducing phosphorus fertilizer in a U.S. suburban watershed. Water Policy. Vol. 16, No. 6, December 2014, pp. 917-929.
  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Under Review Year Published: 2014 Citation: Dosskey, M.G., S. Neelakantan, T. Mueller, Z. Qiu. Vegetative Filters (Chapter 10). In Precision Conservation: Geospatial Technologies for Agriculture and Natural Resources Conservation. J. Delgado and T. Mueller (eds.), ASA-CSSA-SSSA, Madison, WI.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Archibald, J.A. and M.T. Walter. 2014. Do energy-based PET models require more input data than temperature-based models?  An evaluation at four humid FluxNet sites. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 50(2): 487-508
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2015 Citation: Barclay, J.R., T.R. Anderson, J.A. Archibald, M.T. Walter. 2015. Modeling denitrification in an agricultural catchment in central New York. Sustainability of Water Quality and Ecology 5: 49-63. [doi: 10.1016/j.swaqe.2014.12.007] (online 14 Jan. 2015)


Progress 03/01/13 to 02/28/14

Outputs
Target Audience: Provide learning and training to 1 undergraduate, 1 graduate student and 1 visiting scholar at NJIT and 2 undergraduate and 2 graduate students at Cronell through field data collection and in-house data processing and analysis. The results have been presented at the Fall 2013 meeting of the American Geophysical Unions. A couple of publications have submitted to professional journals to reach out to broad audiences. Changes/Problems: There is no major change in approach, but there is delay in recruit qualified Ph.D. at NJIT in relation to the accomplishment of the second objective. A request was made to change the support for the Ph.D. student to hire a postdoctoral researcher. The request was approved. We are in the process of hiring the postdoctoral researcher. A no-cost extention for 12-16 months will be requested to complete the project in its full scope. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? This project contributed to the dissertation of one PhD student (graduated) and is part the thesis of one MS student (current). Three undergraduate researchers and two visiting scholars also participated in this project. The data were also used in the testing of a variable source area hydrology model. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? The results have been presented at the Fall 2013 meeting of the American Geophysical Unions and in the journal Hydrology and Earth System Science (HESS) Discussion, published in Journal of American Water Resources Association and Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Analysis is in progress to extend our work on distributed soil moisture to estimate distributed risks of storm runoff generation; Extend field monitoring to include suburban and forested landscapes and more temporally intensive monitoring after rainfall events; Expand our modeling efforts to include phosphorus transport; Develop the regional landscape model and present the preliminary data.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We continued collection of soil moisture field data from 5 agricultural sites in NY and 3 sites in NJ.The data were used to develop indices of relative soil moisture. About 50 watersheds in New Jersey that safisifed certain criteria were identified to be used in developing the regional CSA-LIISIM model. Water quality monitoring data were collected, verified and processed. LiDAR DEM in NJ were proccessed to generate the fine-resolution TIs.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Qiu, Z., Hall, C., Drewes, D., Messinger, G., Prato, T., Hale, K., and Van Abs, D. (2013). "Hydrologically Sensitive Areas, Land Use Controls, and Protection of Healthy Watersheds." J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage. , 10.1061/(ASCE)WR.1943-5452.0000376 , 04014011.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Dosskey, M.G., Z. Qiu, and Y. Kang, 2013. A Comparison of DEM-Based Indexes for Targeting the Placement of Vegetative Buffers in Agricultural Watersheds. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 49(6): 1270-1283. DOI: 10.1111/jawr.12083
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2014 Citation: Buchanan, B. P., Fleming, M., Schneider, R. L., Richards, B. K., Archibald, J., Qiu, Z., and Walter, M. T.: Evaluating topographic wetness indices across central New York agricultural landscapes, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., 10, 14041-14093, doi:10.5194/hessd-10-14041-2013, 2013.


Progress 03/01/12 to 02/28/13

Outputs
Target Audience: We reached to the following target audiences for their assistances in the project: 1. Raritan Headwaters Association; Hunterdon County Land Trust; New Jersey Water Supply Authority and Tweksbury Township who allowed the project team to collect soil moisture samples in their managed lands. 2. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection that assisted data collection in LiDAR digital elevation model, water quality and flow data. 3. USGS New Jersey Water Science Center that provided the spatial data on the site locations for water quality, streamflow and biological monitoring. We also reached to the following target audiences including many stateholders by presenting the preliminary project results: 1. Participants of the 5th Passaic River Symposium held at Montclair State University on October 19, 2012. 2. Participants of the 2013 Biological and Environmental Engineering Symposium at Cornell University. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? The project offered the following training opportuities: 1. A Ph.D. student; 2. A M.S. student; 3. A visiting schalor from China. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? 1. Finalize the paper on comparison and selection of WTI indices. 2. Continue field soil moisture monitoring and assess the correlation between soil moisture measurements and WTI indices in various conditions. 3. Compile the datasets for regional modeling and conduct preliminary regional modeling for achieving Objective 2.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We are in the data collection and precessing for achieving both objective: Objective 1:We have collected 4 months of VWC data from roughly 10 different field sites in New York and New Jersey. We have also collected soil cores from the field sites in order to calibrate our instrument probes via gravimetric analysis. All field data has been digitized and error-checked. Roughly 600 different formulations of TWI have been constructed using SAGA-GIS and the R statistical computing language. The strength of the correlation between the ~600 TWIs and observed soil moisture was assessed via Spearman rank correlation coefficients. We also constructed linear mixed effect models to better control for the lack of independence in our field data (VWC readings were repeated measures through time). We then assessed the predictive performance of the various TWIs by comparing Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) values from the mixed effects models. Objective 2: We also collect all spatial data including LiDAR digital elevation model (DEM), land uses and soils for New Jersey, locations of water quality, streamflow and biological monitoring sites, historic climate data and water quality, steamflow and biological monitoring data. We will build our regional modeling upon the 10-foot LiDAR DEM. We are still in the process of finding effective way of processing and handling the large datasets. The key outcome during this period is a rough manuscript that explores the strength of correlation between Topographic Wetness Indices (TWIs) and field observations of soil moisture patterns across agricultural land uses in the northeastern U.S. The findings from our first manuscript help to validate the use of TWIs for the prediction of soil moisture patterns in agricultural regions. TWIs form the basis of many popular hydrologic and water quality models (e.g. TOPMODEL, VSLF, SWAT-VSA), yet no large-scale verification of the TWI has ever been conducted. Our findings will have substantial implications for the hydrologic modeling community and water resource managers. Another key contribution is to identify the TWI formulation and parameter combination that results in the best predictive performance. Currently, there is little guidance for selecting which TWI is appropriate for particular applications. Our findings will greatly facilitate TWI selection and thereby improve our ability to predict runoff generating and pollutant source areas in agricultural landscapes &ndash; allowing us to better target limited BMP funding. We also intend to explore the physical reasons why some TWIs and parameter sets result in good vs. bad correlations. This will shed light on the physical mechanisms controlling soil moisture dynamics and will provide critical information for the scientific community.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2013 Citation: Dosskey, M.G., Z. Qiu and Y. Kang. A Comparison of DEM-based Indexes for Targeting the Placement of Vegetative Buffers in Agricultural Watersheds. Journal of the American Water Resources Association.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2013 Citation: Qiu, Z., C. Hall, D. Drewes, G. Messinger, T. Prato, K. Hale and D. Van Abs. Hydrologically Sensitive Areas, Municipal Land Use Controls and Protection of Healthy Watersheds. Journal of Water Resource Planning and Management
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Other Year Published: 2013 Citation: Buchanan. B.P., Qiu, Z., Walter, M.T. Evaluating Topographic Wetness Indices Across Agricultural Landscapes. In preparation.