Adaptive Targeting: Engaging Farmers to Assess Perceptions and Improve Watershed Modeling, Optimization, and Adoption of Agricultural Conservation Practices

Kalcic, Margaret McCahon. Ph.D., Purdue University, December 2013. Adaptive Targeting: Engaging Farmers to Assess Perceptions and Improve Watershed Modeling, Optimization, and Adoption of Agricultural Conservation Practices. Major Professors: Jane Frankenberger and Indrajeet Chaubey. Targeting agricultural conservation practices to farmland that has the greatest impact on surface water quality has received wide support from scientists and watershed managers. The targeting approach has, however, been politically contentious as many believe farmers will oppose the approach on grounds such as privacy invasion and unfair distribution of government incentives. Targeting conservation practices using complex optimization models has become common in the scientific community, and yet targeted results are underutilized in practice because of difficulties such as knowledge transfer and absence of a political framework for their use. For targeting to be successful, it must be politically supported in concept and practically demonstrated in implementation. In this work I have conducted an interdisciplinary study and targeting experiment that brings together the human dimensions of targeting with the engineering tools of watershed modeling and spatial optimization to demonstrate an adaptive targeting approach. The approach is adaptive in its involvement of stakeholders, namely farmers and landowners, in the targeting process. Fourteen farmers were engaged through in-depth interviews about their farmland, conservation practices, and opinions on targeting of conservation. Interviews and the targeting experiment were conducted in 2012-2013 in two small westcentral Indiana watersheds – the Little Pine watershed (56 km) and Little Wea watershed (45 km). There was general support for the targeting approach among farmers interviewed, despite wide variation in farmer views of conservation and government programs. Farmer views