Analysis of BMP implementation, performance, and maintenance in Spring Creek, an agriculturally-influenced watershed in Pennsylvania, 2006-2009

Assessing the performance of conservation BMPs in agricultural watersheds across the U.S. is extraordinarily difficult because of the diversity of conservation practices, the variety of hydrogeomorphic (HGM) settings in which they are implemented, and the breadth of geographic regions involved. Spring Creek watershed, an intensively studied 11-digit HUC watershed in central Pennsylvania (see Figure 1), has the necessary long-term data on water quality for assessing a suite of BMPs in an agricultural watershed. Our investigative team comes from three institutions – Pennsylvania State University, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, and Canaan Valley Institute - representing the fields of stream and wetland ecology, landscape ecology, fisheries biology, hydrology, resource economics, and rural sociology. We have carefully selected experimental units to use that focus our data collection and analysis on BMP performance, and allowing us to factor out the impact of underlying HGM variation. Using a combination of field data, landscape analyses, and hydrologic modeling from the experimental reaches and other watershed segments, we will determine if evaluations at the reach scale can be compiled predictively to characterize the condition of watersheds. By combining ground-based measurements with fine-resolution LIDAR and digital photography data, we will be able to more precisely map topographically and hydrologically distinct reaches (e.g., HGM settings) that vary in their response to BMPs both spatially and temporally. Building on recent surveys in Spring Creek, new focus groups, interviews, and surveys will be conducted to gain more understanding about the motivations to participate in BMP implementation, maintenance, and monitoring. The study will be conducted over 3 years (2007-2009).