1. Dual water quality responses after more than 30 years of agricultural management practices in the rural headwaters of the Choptank River basin in the Chesapeake Bay watershed
- Author
-
Silaphone, Keota and Silaphone, Keota
- Abstract
Eutrophication is the water quality response to over-enrichment by nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) in fresh, estuarine, and coastal waters globally. Agricultural best management practices (BMPs) are the primary tool for controlling eutrophication in rural areas, particularly in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, where BMPs are vital to achieving TMDL goals. However, despite the application of BMPs, local water quality in the headwaters of the Choptank River, a major tributary of the Chesapeake Bay on the Delmarva Peninsula, has not improved. Thus, further investigation of agricultural BMP impacts on water quality in the Greensboro watershed is needed. My overarching research question is, “Why have N and P concentrations increased at the USGS Greensboro gauge if agricultural Best Management Practices (BMPs) have been implemented?” I applied statistical approaches to three linked, testable hypotheses to systematically evaluate agricultural BMPs and their impacts on nutrient (N and P) export from the Greensboro watershed. My first hypothesis was that agricultural BMPs have increased significantly in the Greensboro watershed. To test this hypothesis, I obtained publicly available modeling data via the Chesapeake Assessment Scenario Tool (CAST) and estimated the subsequent edge-of-stream N and P export. My findings indicated that the number of BMPs in the agricultural sector increased significantly between 1985 and 2021, supporting the hypothesis. Overall, modeled agricultural N and P export significantly decreased between 2010 and 2021 (p < 0.001). However, the modeled edge-of-stream agricultural nutrient export resulted in no significant change in N export and an increase of 3% in agricultural P export resulting from BMP implementation levels in 2021 compared to 2010. This study demonstrated the use of CAST to acquire reported BMP implementation levels and increased nutrient inputs into the Greensboro watershed between 1985 and 2021. The watershed nutrient inputs mirror the
- Published
- 2023