1.
1USDA-NRCS, 2USEPA, 3NC State University
Edge of Field Monitoring Conference
Memphis, TN
L. Duriancik1, Katie Flahive2, D. Osmond3

2.
Water Quality Monitoring Decisions
Determine What Questions Can Be Answered
`

3.
Questions to be Addressed Through
Different Types of Monitoring
 Identify water quality or resource
problems
 Assess permit compliance
 Develop TMDLs and pollutant load
allocations
 Analyze national or statewide
trends
 Assess water quality impacts of
management practices and
implementation strategies
 Calibrate or validate water quality
models, including water quality
trading
 Understand pollutant sources and
transport
4
YEAR 2001
Dry Year
Adj R² = 0.79
Year 2003
Wet Year
Adj R² = 0.75
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
0 25 50
TNLoad(kg/ha/yr)
Ag Land Area/Total Watershed Area (%)

4.
Water Quality Monitoring Decisions
Setting goals and objectives
• Experimental design/monitoring design
• Scale of monitoring
• Frequency and duration of monitoring
• Lag times
• Response variables
• Technical needs related to sampling and analysis
Rock Creek, OH

5.
Most conservation implementation projects should NOT
conduct water quality monitoring to demonstrate the
effectiveness of conservation practices because monitoring is
technically very challenging and expensive.
Lessons Learned from NIFA-CEAP:
Water Quality Monitoring is Difficult

6.
 Data on farming systems (e.g., split application of herbicides)
needed to explain monitoring results
 In long-term monitoring, installed practices may degrade, be
modified, or be abandoned – this must be known to understand
monitoring results. This information, however is rarely obtained.
 Need to extend oversight activity beyond initial installation
period. This can only be accomplished at a reasonable scale.
Water Quality Monitoring: Cause and Effect
No matter how rigorous the water quality
monitoring, it will be impossible to link observed
changes in water quality to land treatment
without equally rigorous land treatment and
management monitoring.

7.
Linking Practice Implementation and Land Use to
Load Reductions: Neuse River Estuary
8
-60%
-45%
-30%
-15%
0%
15%
30%
45%
1984 1987 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011
TotalNRelativeLoad(%)
Year
NO3/NO2
TKN
TN
Target
1991-1995
From DRAFT DWQ MTU Memorandum on Neuse Trends, 1/2/2013

8.
Linking Practice Implementation and Land Use to
Load Reductions : Chesapeake Bay
9
Flow -
billions of
gallons per
day – green
line
Total P load
(millions lbs/
year) – green
tipped bar
Average P
load – 19
mil-lbs/yr

9.
Linking Practice Implementation and Land Use to
Load Reductions: Neuse River Estuary
10
-60%
-45%
-30%
-15%
0%
15%
30%
45%
1984 1987 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011
TotalNRelativeLoad(%)
Year
NO3/NO2
TKN
TN
Target
1991-1995
From DRAFT DWQ MTU Memorandum on Neuse Trends, 1/2/2013

10.
Water Quality Monitoring Is a Tool
CANNOT
 Conduct watershed planning
 Determine appropriate
conservation practices
 Determine critical source
areas
 Identify watershed farmers’
attitudes toward conservation
practices
 Maintain conservation
practice
 Provide economic and
technical assistance
CAN
 Help Identifying pollutant(s)
of concern, sources, and
hydrologic transport
 Help identify conservation
practice effectiveness
 Inform future management
decisions
 Provide information for
outreach and adaptive
management
Photo by Deanna Osmond, Georgia CEAP, 2009

11.
Who Needs Data and Why?
Producers, farm
managers, advisors
• Feedback on particular
practices, concerns
• Support adaptive
management,
conservation planning
Conservationists,
watershed planners,
managers
• Identify constituents of
concern and sources
• Track implementation of
watershed plan or
conservation needs/plan
• GIS approaches
• Watershed monitoring
for outcomes
Program Managers
• Is current design
achieving or addressing
expectations? Yes or why
not?
• Adjust program design or
implementation
• Enhance projects and
evaluation criteria
Agencies, scientists
Research – understanding
Official reporting
• Accountability
• Different scales of
reporting expectations
• National/ large regional
• Small watershed with
implementation
• Value of benchmarks
MRBI
NWQI
GLRI
!
Percent Perennial = 1.7% Percent Perennial = 58.5%
Map from Phil Heilman, USDA ARS

12.
How Can NRCS Use EOF Data
 Conservation Planning
 Practice effectiveness
(need under a range of
conditions)
 Practice interactions and
systems, where we can
test that, at field scale
 Practice Standards
 Modeling
 algorithm development
 need a range of weather,
soils, hydrologic
conditions
 calibration, validation
Photo by Lisa Duriancik. EOF monitoring in Indiana.

13.
How Can NRCS Use Watershed Data
 Primary constituents, sources
and flow paths for planning
 Outcome reporting
 Align with conservation
implementation
 Feedback into watershed
conservation plan
 Explanatory variables
 Why or why not?
 Be explicit about conclusions
 Articulate the nuances
 EOF within helps
 Modeling to help understand
and attribute effects
 Combined approach
necessary
Lizotte et al., 2014, JSWC, 69 (2): 160-170.
Beasley Lake CEAP Watershed, MS

14.
Considerations for Greater Utility of
Water Quality Monitoring Data
• EOF, within watershed
and at watershed outlet
• Combine locations
regionally
• Model to evaluate
broader effects
Comprehe
nsive
scales and
watershed
designs
more
useful
• Inform program design
• Shape program delivery
• Guide evaluation criteria
and ranking
• Inform outcome
assessment strategies,
approaches
Synthesize
lessons
learned
• Targeted
conservation
implementation with
monitoring and
assessment at
scales
• Requires
stakeholder/partner
collaboration
• Prioritize
alignment?
• Include
groundwater where
appropriate and
feasible
Strategically
align
resources

15.
Reducing Nonpoint Sources Needs a
Watershed Planning Focus
 To reduce impacts from agricultural lands, focus on
implementation in targeted watersheds with critical areas identified
 At the watershed scale, 319 Nonpoint Source Program 9-element
watershed plans allow for locally led efforts to drive nutrient load
reductions
 Holistic plans to clean up entire (typically small) watersheds
 Identifies critical areas, pollutant sources, loads, potential
management practices, etc.
 Roadmap for project implementation most likely to deliver
water quality results
 USDA CEAP, EPA & other science confirm: targeting systems of
conservation practices in the right places is essential to water
quality results and effective return for investment
 www2.epa.gov/polluted-runoff-nonpoint-source-pollution
16

16.
USEPA: Addressing Challenges in
Nonpoint Source Monitoring
 Discerning water quality changes from conservation
practices is feasible with care in site selection, tracking,
and monitoring design
 Monitoring design must incorporate explanatory variables –
weather data, stream bank assessment, nature and extent
of adopted conservation practices, other changes in
watershed
 Scale, type and location of monitoring will vary based on
many factors including:
 layout and characteristics of watershed
 location of fixed monitoring stations
 amount and distribution of conservation practices, including
relative to other sources of pollution and management
measures in watershed
 critical source areas in watershed
17

17.
USEPA: Example Assessment
 Assessment goal: track progress at multiple HUC12 watersheds to
assess water quality impacts of agricultural conservation practices
 Instream Water Quality Monitoring
 Monitoring design based on watershed circumstances, critical
areas and practice implementation in those areas.
 Leverage existing/planned monitoring where it coincides with
NWQI watersheds
 Edge of Field Monitoring and Assessment Tools
 Edge of Field Monitoring in a subset of these watersheds
 Use this monitoring data to develop stronger assessment models
 Modeling watersheds to track intended progress
 Long term trend tracking
 Assess monitoring trends over time
 Water quality progress through accelerated implementation of
conservation practices
 Delistings
 Long-term coordination and effective partnerships Watersheds
meeting conservation treatment need documented by NRCS state
offices 18

18.
In Memory of a Friend to Agriculture
and the Environment
A profound thank you
to
Roberta Parry
who made us all better
and challenged us to
do more.