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Folders: ROOT > ScienceBase Catalog > National and Regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers > Northeast CASC > FY 2012 Projects ( Show direct descendants )

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Publicly available statistics regarding rural demographics, rural society and land use are presented and analysed using Geographic Information System (GIS). Our aim was to provide a quantitative basis for discussion of rural policy issues such as urban encroachment. Productivity (tonnage) of crop agriculture has increased by about 230% over 40 years while that of livestock (expressed as livestock units) has remained constant. Agricultural consolidation and intensification seen in southern Ontario has not translated into economic sustainability where on-farm income declined from 1991 to 2000. However, on-farm income in southern Quebec and municipalities adjacent to Toronto increased, perhaps due to the niche markets...
Streamflow declines on the Great Plains of the US are causing many Federal reservoirs to become profoundly inefficient, and will eventually drive them into unsustainability as negative annual reservoir water budgets become more common. The streamflow declines are historically related to groundwater mining, but since the mid-1980s correlate increasingly with climate. This study highlights that progression toward unsustainability, and shows that future climate change will continue streamflow declines at historical rates, with severe consequences for surface water supply. An object lesson is Optima Lake in the Oklahoma Panhandle, where streamflows have declined 99% since the 1960s and the reservoir has never been more...
There have been growing concerns over the negative effect of pesticide usage on human health and environmental sustainability. It has been found out that atrazine, a widely used herbicide, threatens ecosystems. Its residues after application can be discharged into water bodies, and thus contaminate surface water and pose risks to public health. An integrated modelling system was developed to estimate atrazine losses through surface runoff. This model includes a distributed hydrological model, a pesticide adsorption model, relational databases, and a geographic information system. The proposed model can simulate atrazine losses due to runoff through the consideration of emission, degradation, adsorption, and movement...
Societies are facing major challenges in allocating water resources to growing water demands due to population growth and industrial and agricultural developments. With increasing water scarcity, the need to increase agricultural water productivity is receiving significant attention in developing countries. Among alternative options for meeting increasing water demand, improving productivity has received considerable attention. Therefore, planning of water systems to face future development conditions needs further studies on land, water use, and resources as well as consideration of objectives to maximize crop production to achieve the maximum net return. Because climate change is likely to have impact on the hydrological...
The determination of best management practices for land resources is often complicated by the lack of a means for evaluation and lack of quality data. Soil surveys are an important source of data that can be used to improve farm and ranch planning and environmental protection. In this study, we examined the use of a soil survey geographic (SSURGO) database within a geographic information system (GIS) coupled with remote sensing data for land-use management in Finney County, Kansas. The objectives were (i) to identify land-use change; (ii) to evaluate the influence of soil, groundwater, and physiography on land use; and (iii) to assess land-use potential and present management alternatives. Land-use/land-cover (LULC)...
The state of Iowa requires developing total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) for over 400 water bodies that are listed on the 303(d) list of the impaired waters. The Raccoon River watershed, which covers approximately 9400 km2 of prime agriculture land and represents a typical Midwestern corn-belt region in west-central Iowa, was found to have three stream segments impaired by nitrate-N. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was applied to this watershed to facilitate the development of a TMDL. The modeling framework integrates SWAT with supporting software and databases on topography, land use and management, soil, and weather information. Annual and monthly simulated and measured streamflow and nitrate loads were...
A five-year record of streamflow and chemical sampling data was evaluated to assess the effects of large-scale prairie restoration on transport of NO3–N, Cl, and SO4 loads from paired 5000-ha watersheds located in Jasper County, Iowa. Water quality conditions monitored during land use conversion from row crop agriculture to native prairie in the Walnut Creek watershed were compared with a highly agricultural control watershed (Squaw Creek). Combining hydrograph separation with a load estimation program, baseflow and stormflow loads of NO3–N, Cl, and SO4 were estimated at upstream and downstream sites on Walnut Creek and a downstream site on Squaw Creek. Chemical export in both watersheds was found to occur primarily...
ABSTRACT Catchment-modelling techniques, although not yet widely used in biological contexts, may be a valuable tool in the management and conservation of stream fishes. This study was undertaken to evaluate the potential of a catchment-scale hydrologic model, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), to explain characteristics of stream fish assemblages and to enhance current field-based stream assessments., Stream fish assemblages, instream habitat, geomorphology, and water quality were surveyed in 16 study catchments in Ohio, USA. Subsequently, SWAT was used to model stream discharge, sediment flux and concentration, and nitrogen and phosphorus yields for each catchment., Principal component analysis (PCA) and...