Abstract
Freshwater provisioning (FWP) is a critical ecosystem service that is highly affected by climate change/variability as well as land use/land management. Agricultural best management practices (BMPs) are implemented to mitigate the adverse impacts of intensive agricultural production on flow and water quality, thus can potentially protect and improve FWP services. Many studies have assessed BMP effectiveness for improving hydrology/water quality, however the impact of climate changes on BMP effectiveness for protecting FWP is poorly understood. In this study, changes in FWP under 5 BMPs and 6 projected climate change/variability scenarios, were quantified. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool was used to quantify FWP services for baseline (1975–2004) and future climates (2021–2050). We then assessed the climate change impacts on BMP effectiveness for 13 watersheds in the Upper Mississippi River Basin. The results indicated that all 5 BMP scenarios behaved similarly under the historical and future climates, generally resulting in improved FWP services compared to the baseline agricultural management. The combined BMPs was the most effective way to enhance FWP. No-tillage and cover crops performed well in improving FWP in agriculturally-dominated watersheds, while filter strips and grassed waterways had high effectiveness in non-agriculturally dominated watersheds. Results for the climate scenarios indicate that 5 BMPs under future climate were still effective compared to baseline. The increased precipitation and rising temperatures generally improved BMP effectiveness in maintaining and improving FWP services, due to increased freshwater availability under the projected future climate.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abbaspour KC, Rouholahnejad E, Vaghefi S et al (2015) A continental-scale hydrology and water quality model for Europe: calibration and uncertainty of a high-resolution large-scale SWAT model. J Hydrol 524:733–752. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2015.03.027
Alexander RB, Smith RA, Schwarz GE (2000) Effect of stream channel size on the delivery of nitrogen to the Gulf of Mexico. Nature 403:758–761
Arabi M, Frankenberger JR, Engel BA, Arnold JG (2008) Representation of agricultural conservation practices with SWAT. Hydrol Process 22:3042–3055. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.6890
Arnold JG, Srinivasan R, Muttiah RS, Williams JR (1998) Large area hydrologic modeling and assessment part I: model development. J Am Water Resour Assoc 34:73–89
Bhattarai R, Kalita PK, Patel MK (2009) Nutrient transport through a vegetative filter strip with subsurface drainage. J Environ Manag 90:1868–1876. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2008.12.010
Bosch NS, Allan JD, Selegean JP, Scavia D (2013) Scenario-testing of agricultural best management practices in Lake Erie watersheds. J Great Lakes Res 39:429–436. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jglr.2013.06.004
Bosch NS, Evans MA, Scavia D, Allan JD (2014) Interacting effects of climate change and agricultural BMPs on nutrient runoff entering Lake Erie. J Great Lakes Res 40:581–589. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jglr.2014.04.011
Chaubey I, Chiang L, Gitau MW, Mohamed S (2010) Effectiveness of best management practices in improving water quality in a pasture-dominated watershed. J Soil Water Conserv 65:424–437. https://doi.org/10.2489/jswc.65.6.424
Christensen JH, Boberg F, Christensen OB, Lucas-Picher P (2008) On the need for bias correction of regional climate change projections of temperature and precipitation. Geophys Res Lett 35:L20709. https://doi.org/10.1029/2008GL035694
Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP) (2012) Assessment of the Effects of conservation practices on cultivated cropland in the Upper Mississippi River Basin. United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), USA
Dakhlalla AO, Parajuli PB (2016) Evaluation of the best management practices at the watershed scale to attenuate peak streamflow under climate change scenarios. Water Resour Manag 30:963–982. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-015-1202-9
Delong MD (2005) 8 - upper Mississippi River basin A2 - Benke, Arthur C. In: Cushing CE (ed) Rivers of North America. Academic Press, Burlington, pp 326–373
Demissie Y, Yan E, Wu M (2012) Assessing regional hydrology and water quality implications of large-scale biofuel feedstock production in the upper Mississippi River basin. Environ Sci Technol 46:9174–9182. https://doi.org/10.1021/es300769k
Gassman PW, Sadeghi AM, Srinivasan R (2014) Applications of the SWAT model special section: overview and insights. J Environ Qual 43:1. https://doi.org/10.2134/jeq2013.11.0466
IPCC (2013) Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the fifth assessment report of the International Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, and New York. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/. Accessed 3 Nov 2017
Jayakody P, Parajuli PB, Cathcart TP (2014) Impacts of climate variability on water quality with best management practices in sub-tropical climate of USA. Hydrol Process 28:5776–5790. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.10088
Kaini P, Artita K, Nicklow JW (2012) Optimizing structural best management practices using SWAT and genetic algorithm to improve water quality goals. Water Resour Manag 26:1827–1845. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-012-9989-0
Kalcic MM, Frankenberger J, Chaubey I (2015) Spatial optimization of six conservation practices using Swat in tile-drained agricultural watersheds. J Am Water Resour Assoc 51:956–972. https://doi.org/10.1111/1752-1688.12338
Kaspar TC, Jaynes DB, Parkin TB et al (2012) Effectiveness of oat and rye cover crops in reducing nitrate losses in drainage water. Agric Water Manag 110:25–33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2012.03.010
Li P, Chaubey I, Muenich RL, Wei X (2016) Evaluation of freshwater provisioning for different ecosystem services in the Upper Mississippi River Basin: current status and drivers. Water 8:288. https://doi.org/10.3390/w8070288
Li P, Omani N, Chaubey I, Wei X (2017) Evaluation of drought implications on ecosystem services: freshwater provisioning and food provisioning in the upper Mississippi River basin. Int J Environ Res Public Health 14:496. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14050496
Logsdon RA, Chaubey I (2013) A quantitative approach to evaluating ecosystem services. Ecol Model 257:57–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2013.02.009
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) (2005) Ecosystem services and human well-being: synthesis. Island Press, Washington
Moriasi DN, Arnold JG, Van Liew MW et al (2007) Model evaluation guidelines for systematic quantification of accuracy in watershed simulations. Trans ASABE 50:885–900
Neitsch SL, Arnold JG, Kiniry JR, Williams JR (2009) Soil and water assessment tool theoretical documentation version 2009. Texas Water Resources Institute Technical Report No. 406. College Station, TX, USA. 2011:1–618
Panagopoulos Y, Gassman PW, Arritt RW et al (2014) Surface water quality and cropping systems sustainability under a changing climate in the upper Mississippi River basin. J Soil Water Conserv 69:483–494. https://doi.org/10.2489/jswc.69.6.483
Russo S, Marchese AF, Sillmann J, Immé G (2016) When will unusual heat waves become normal in a warming Africa? Environ Res Lett 11:054016. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/5/054016
Secchi S, Gassman PW, Jha M et al (2011) Potential water quality changes due to corn expansion in the upper Mississippi River basin. Ecol Appl 21:1068–1084. https://doi.org/10.1890/09-0619.1
Srinivasan R, Zhang X, Arnold J (2010) SWAT ungauged: hydrological budget and crop yield predictions in the upper Mississippi River basin. Trans ASABE 53:1533–1546
Strock JS, Porter PM, Russelle MP (2004) Cover cropping to reduce nitrate loss through subsurface drainage in the northern U.S. Corn Belt. J Environ Qual 33:1010–1016
Taylor KE, Stouffer RJ, Meehl GA (2012) An overview of CMIP5 and the experiment design. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 93:485–498. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00094.1
Terrado M, Acuña V, Ennaanay D et al (2014) Impact of climate extremes on hydrological ecosystem services in a heavily humanized Mediterranean basin. Ecol Indic 37:199–209. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2013.01.016
Teutschbein C, Seibert J (2012) Bias correction of regional climate model simulations for hydrological climate-change impact studies: review and evaluation of different methods. J Hydrol 456–457:12–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2012.05.052
USDA-NRCS (2013) Soil Web Portal http://soildatamart.nrcs.usda.gov/. Accessed 27 July 2015
Villarreal EL, Semadeni-Davies A, Bengtsson L (2004) Inner city stormwater control using a combination of best management practices. Ecol Eng 22:279–298. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.2004.06.007
Vörösmarty CJ, Bos R, Balvanera P (2005) Fresh water. Ecosyst Hum Well- Curr State Trends Find Cond Trends Work Group 1:165
Waidler D, White M, Steglich E, Wang S, Williams J, Jones CA, Srinivasan R (2009) Conservation practice modeling guide for SWAT and APEX. Texas Water Resources Institute Technical Report No. 399, Texas A&M University System College Station, Texas p 77843–2118
Willaarts BA, Volk M, Aguilera PA (2012) Assessing the ecosystem services supplied by freshwater flows in Mediterranean agroecosystems. Agric Water Manag 105:21–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2011.12.019
Acknowledgements
This study was funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Award No. 043206018), the U.S. Department of Energy (Award No. DE-EE0004396) and the USDA-NIFA (Award No. S1063). Great appreciation to Hendrik Rathjens for his technical help on bias correction of climate projection data. The authors also would like to thank anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions to improve the manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Appendix
Appendix
Mean annual streamflow, CTN, CTP, CTSS under baseline management for baseline and future climates of two RCPs; a-m in x-axis denotes each watershed; The y-axis of top-left figure displays as log scale; Error bars denote the standard deviation of annual data series
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Li, P., Muenich, R.L., Chaubey, I. et al. Evaluating Agricultural BMP Effectiveness in Improving Freshwater Provisioning Under Changing Climate. Water Resour Manage 33, 453–473 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-018-2098-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-018-2098-y