Location: Soil Drainage Research
Project Number: 5080-13210-003-042-I
Project Type: Interagency Reimbursable Agreement
Start Date: Sep 1, 2025
End Date: Sep 30, 2029
Objective:
The proposed research will compile available historical and current information on conservation practices, water chemistry variables, hydrological variables, and fishes from 18 CEAP watersheds and 4 LTAR sites to document the relationship of fishes with the use of multiple conservation practices in agricultural streams and rivers throughout the U.S.
Approach:
The project proposes to compile available historical and current information on conservation practices, water chemistry variables, hydrological variables, and fishes from 15 CEAP watersheds and four LTAR sites located in the United States. Data compilation will begin with interviews of team leads for each CEAP watershed and LTAR site to determine: 1) the availability and extent of the conservation practices, water chemistry, hydrology, and fish data; 2) basic watershed information (i.e., gps location, shapefiles of watershed boundaries, number of subwatersheds sampled, etc.); and 3) identification of potential universities, state agencies, and federal agencies that might have the desired data, especially fish data. The initial data compilation effort will also identify the time span of study for each watershed, which will be important in requesting the data from the associated CEAP team leads and the NRCS. Data on the annual amounts of conservation practices within the watershed boundaries for the identified time periods will be requested from the NRCS CEAP Team Lead. The compiled data will then be analyzed using a combination of path analysis, mixed effects model analysis to to evaluate the relationships among combinations of conservation practices, hydrologic variables, and water chemistry variables with fish response variables of multiple conservation practices, water chemistry, and hydrologic variables for each watershed for each year.