This study was conducted under the USDA-Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP) in the Cheney Lake watershed in south-central Kansas. The Cheney Lake watershed has been identified as ‘impaired waters’ under Section 303(d) of the Federal Clean Water Act for sediments and total phosphorus. The USDA-CEAP seeks to quantify environmental benefits of conservation programmes on water quality by...

Two different methods utilizing geographical information systems (GIS) and digital elevation models (DEMs) are described and evaluated for applying the Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) model to assess water erosion and runoff in small watersheds. The first approach, called the Hillslope method, presents an automated method for the application of WEPP through the extraction of hillslopes ...

Fire suppression in the last century has resulted in forests with excessive amounts of biomass, leading to more severe wildfires, covering greater areas, requiring more resources for suppression and mitigation, and causing increased onsite and offsite damage to forests and watersheds. Forest managers are now attempting to reduce this accumulated biomass by thinning, prescribed fire, and other m...

Fire suppression in the last century has resulted in forests with excessive amounts of biomass, leading to more severe wildfires, covering greater areas, requiring more resources for suppression and mitigation, and causing increased onsite and offsite damage to forests and watersheds. Forest managers are now attempting to reduce this accumulated biomass by thinning, prescribed fire, and other m...

The disposal of manure on agricultural land has caused water quality concerns in many rural watersheds, sometimes requiring state environmental agencies to conduct total maximum daily load (TMDL) assessments of stream nutrients, such as nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). A best management practice (BMP) has been developed in response to a TMDL that mandates a 50% reduction of annual P load to the...

Sediment transport relates to suspended sediment and bedload. The suspended sedi‐ ment plays the most important role on the land-ocen sediment flux. On the other hand, the bedload should be considered in order to assess the impacts of dams on sediment transport and sediment yield. Recent effects of dam construction have been widely reported. The sediment load has been reduced by more than 75% f...

Non-point source pollution is well recognized as one of the most critical environmental hazards of modern times. In Illinois, non-point source pollution is the major cause of water quality problems, and soil erosion from agricultural lands is the major source of such pollution. Accelerated by anthropogenic activities, soil erosion reduces crop productivity and leads to subsequent problems from ...

The Raccoon River Watershed (RRW) in West-Central Iowa has been recognized as exporting some of the highest nitrate-nitrogen loadings in the United States and is a major source of sediment and other nutrient loadings. An integrated modeling framework has been constructed for the RRW that consists of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model, the interactive SWAT (i_SWAT) software package,...

The Morro Bay Watershed, located in San Luis Obispo County, California, covers more than 48,000 acres of land and discharges into Morro Bay through the Morro Bay National Estuary (MBNE). The Chorro Creek Subwatershed consists of approximately 30,000 acres of the overall watershed. The MBNE provides an ecosystem that supports a variety of wildlife, from the common sea gull to the endangered sea ...

The selection and execution of appropriate best management practices (BMPs) in critical areas a watershed can effectively reduce sediment yield. Objectives this research include developing watershed-scale Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model for the Big Sunflower River Watershed (BSRW), identifying high yield using calibrated validated model, assessing effects various BMPs. efficiency three ...