Watershed assessment through ecological research/farmers active in research

Abstract

Producers in the Southern Piedmont graze and manage their lands in a variety of ways across watersheds and across individual farms. These land management practices may have an impact on the nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) concentrations in stream base flow and storm flow. A group of producers, researchers and educators (WATER/FAIR) pulled together to assess stream nutrient concentrations relative to land management practices in two typical Southern Piedmont watersheds. The objective of this paper is to increase awareness of participatory monitoring and of the spatial and temporal distribution of stream nutrients (N & P) at watershed and farm levels. Results showed that dissolved reactive P (DRP) concentrations were highly variable depending on the management system. Stream base flow nitrate concentrations were lower leaving farms than going into farms more than more than 75 percent of the time and were 16 percent lower in 2000 than in 1999. These lower concentrations coming out of farms could suggest that these management systems are not losing nutrients to aquatic systems but rather utilizing them on the farm.