Identifying and comparing climate and water quality quantification tools
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This document discusses tools for quantifying the outcomes of conservation practices related to climate and water quality. It provides context on why quantification is important, reviews 10 tools based on criteria like usability and functionality, and shares preliminary findings. The document recommends establishing standardized reporting requirements for field data to calibrate and validate models. It also discusses a new American Farmland Trust grant project that will quantify economic, soil health, water quality, and greenhouse gas outcomes of conservation practices using specific tools.
Identifying and comparing climate and water quality quantification tools
- 1. Michelle Perez, PhD Water Initiative Director Albuquerque, NM August 1, 2018 Identifying & Comparing Climate & Water Quality Quantification Tools To Drive Conservation Practice Adoption
- 2. Agenda • CONTEXT • TOOL PURPOSES • REVIEW CRITERIA • PRELIMINARY FINDINGS • RECOMMENDATION
- 3. Context
- 4. Why quantify outcomes? Water pollution & climate change are serious challenges Limited quantitative evidence that soil health & other conservation practices “work” Quantification will hopefully help “sell” conservation better & faster Quantification will hopefully help farmers & groups set & achieve sustainability goals Photo: Ron Nichols, NRCS
- 5. Why is AFT working in this IL watershed? Macoupin Creek (HUC8) Watershed: - One of 3 highest P-yielding watersheds in Illinois - > 2 lb P/ac/yr average watershed losses - 617,000 acres Source: IL NRS report. Figure 6.1
- 6. AFT IL RCPP project: 6 HUC12s in Macoupin Watershed (HUC8)
- 7. In-stream monitoring project area & 5 subwatersheds
- 8. AFT reviewed 10 tools for UMC project To help us measure & report on economic & environmental outcomes of our project at the field-, watershed- & project-scales To identify “hotspots” in our six HUC12s since it’s 135,000 acres To develop an EPA 9-element watershed-based plan Share analyses to help other members of the conservation community do similar work
- 9. Members of the conservation community: • NGOs • Foundations • State agencies • SWCDs • NRCS • Extension specialists • Ag retailers • Crop consultants • Corporate supply chain leaders, etc. who are encouraging farmer adoption of conservation practices Intended audience for paper Photo: Ron Nichols, NRCS
- 10. AFT’s reviewed 10 tools & selected SWAMM for UMC Watershed Project
- 11. Tool Purposes
- 12. Reasons to quantify outcomes Outreach, Education & Adoption Watershed Outcomes Project: Goal- Setting & Reporting State Nutrient Reduction or Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Opportunity Assessments & Strategy Tracking & Reporting Voluntary Payments for Ecosystem Services: Goal-Setting, Pay-for- Performance, & Reporting Regulatory Nutrient Trading Corporate Sustainability Supply Chain Goal-Setting, Progress Tracking Less Rigor More Rigor Note: Order of reasons is illustrative & subject to discussion & re- ordering
- 13. Honing in on what you need a tool to do Economic or environmental quantification Water quality or also climate outcomes Site-specific or generalized estimates Individual or cumulative results of many farmers Management or structural practices Edge-of-field or delivered to streams focus Photo: Ron Nichols, NRCS
- 14. There are always trade-offs. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
- 15. Review Criteria
- 16. Tools should meet 4 criteria 1. Users - Can be used either directly by farmers or by conservation community working with farmers (not by modeling experts) 2. Function - Quantify water quality, climate, or economic outcomes of conservation practices as applied to specific fields or at the watershed-scale 3. Access - Is ideally free or has an affordable fee 4. Readiness – Is currently ready to go with no (or little) calibration needed Photo: Ron Nichols, NRCS
- 17. 1. Who designed the tool? 2. What was the tool designed to do? 3. At what scale does the tool operate? 4. Is tool publicly available or only to members? Free or has a fee? 5. What water quality & climate change resource concerns & changes can be estimated? (N, P, sediment losses, carbon sequestration, nitrous oxide emissions, methane emissions, etc.) 6. Where can the tool be used? Which state, agro-ecoregion, type of crop production? 7. Which CPs can be run thru “what if” scenarios? 8. What model & type of model is the tool based on? (e.g., statistical / empirical v process-based / mechanistic) Data used? 9. Does it include economic info as input or output? 10. Who are the intended users? Who is using / has used this tool? 11. Is the tool peer-reviewed ? 12. What are the tools limitations? 13. What background or training materials are provided? Questions asked about each tool
- 19. USEPA. 2018. “Nutrient and Sediment Estimation Tools for Watershed Protection.” March 3. Simple Mid-range Detailed / Complex Modeling systems CAST AGNPS AGWA PRMS BASINS LTHIA APEX GLEAMS REMM Toolbox NCANAT EPIC HSPF RZWQM2 Region 5 GWLF KINEROS2 SPARROW SELDM MapShed LSPC SUSTAIN Simple Method NTT Opti-Tool SWAT STEPL WARMF P8-UCM SWMM TBET WEPP
- 20. LimnoTech. 2017. “Approaches for Modeling and Monitoring Water Quality Outcomes for Agricultural Fields.” August 15. Index-Based Process-Based Models STEP AnnAGNPS GLEAMS WQI APEX HSPF CREAMS MIKE-SHE DRAINMOD RUSLE2 EPIC RZWQM2 FHANTM SWAT
- 22. Quantification tools compared Water Quality-only Tools 1. Region 5 Tool 2. Nutrient Tracking Tool (NTT) 3. A Conservation Planning Framework (ACPF) 4. Model My Watershed Tool 5. Soil Calculator Tool (fee) 6. Prioritizing, Targeting, Mapping Application (PTMApp) Tool (fee) 7. Spatial Watershed Assessment Measurement & Modeling (SWAMM) Tool (fee) 8. Chesapeake Conservancy’s Tool (fee) GHG-only Tools 1. COMET-Farm Tool 2. COMET-Planner Tool Tools that Quantify Both WQ & GHG 1. Profit Zone Manager (fee) Economics-only Tools 1. Conservation Cropping Systems Calculator 2. Cover Crops Calculator
- 23. Tools that didn’t fit criteria 1. RUSLE2 2. FieldPrint Calculator 3. Precision Conservation Management (PCM) 4. Resource Stewardship Environmental Tool (RSET) Tools that may be included 1. SNAP-Plus but WI only 2. NBMP & PBMP tools but MN only
- 24. Water quality-only tools (free)
- 25. Water quality-only tools (fee-based)
- 26. Greenhouse gas-only tools (free)
- 27. Water quality & GHG tools
- 29. Idea for comparing tool by scale & rigor
- 30. Recommendations
- 31. Establish standardized reporting requirements for experimental field data to calibrate & validate models 1. Exact location of field with soils, slopes, & buffer info 2. Presence, depth, spacing of tile drains 3. Detailed management data – real date scheduling of amount & type of fertilizer applied, tillage type, harvest yield, planting details, mgt & structural BMPs 4. Units of reported constituents are ideally unit-area loads or total loads with field size rather than concentrations Recommendation is from Limnotech, 2017.
- 32. Saving the Land that Sustains Us www.farmland.org mperez@farmland.org; 410-353-5492 (cell); Saving the Land and Water that Sustains Us What do you think? Let’s discuss!
- 33. New 2018 AFT CIG grant! AFT and our local partners in 5 states (CA, IL, OH, NY, VA) will accelerate adoption of Soil Health Management System (SHMS) practices on land that farmers own and land they rent by: 1. Quantifying the economic, soil health, water quality, and greenhouse gas outcomes experienced by farmers who have successfully adopted SHMS, 2. Publishing those findings in short, compelling case studies, 3. Sharing the case studies with farmers & women non-operator landowners who are curious about SHMS to alternative leases, and 4. Providing tailored technical and financial assistance that may be needed to adopt and successfully maintain SHMS.
- 34. Tools AFT will use in new CIG to quantify outcomes 1. Economics – Partial budget analysis using USDA’s Level III T Chart Approach 2. Soil health – NRCS & state soil health cards & buckets 3. Water quality – USDA’s Nutrient Tracking Tool 4. Climate – USDA’s COMET-Farm Tool
Editor's Notes
- #2: Source: View of Scioto Mile from Rich Street Bridge. http://www.columbusddc.com/projects/scioto-mile
- #4: From Wikipedia: A wicked problem is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. The use of the term "wicked" here has come to denote resistance to resolution, rather than evil…. A problem whose solution requires a great number of people to change their mindsets and behavior is likely to be a wicked problem. Therefore, many standard examples of wicked problems come from the areas of public planning and policy. These include global climate change,[7] natural hazards, healthcare, the AIDS epidemic, pandemic influenza, international drug trafficking, nuclear weapons, nuclear energy, waste and social injustice
- #5: https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/article/2017/05/05/ag-secretary-stresses-defense-desire
- #6: Verbally – note that there are only 3 dark orange-colored watersheds and Macoupin Creek is one of them.
- #7: Find the version with the two green USGS monitoring locations JEN FILIPIAK WORKED WITH NRCS & SWCD LOCAL FIELD OFFICES TO IDENTIFY A PROJECT AREA within the HUC8 Macoupin Watershed and honed in on the six subwatersheds you see in the south eastern-most section of watershed.
- #9: https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/article/2017/05/05/ag-secretary-stresses-defense-desire
- #11: From Wikipedia: A wicked problem is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. The use of the term "wicked" here has come to denote resistance to resolution, rather than evil…. A problem whose solution requires a great number of people to change their mindsets and behavior is likely to be a wicked problem. Therefore, many standard examples of wicked problems come from the areas of public planning and policy. These include global climate change,[7] natural hazards, healthcare, the AIDS epidemic, pandemic influenza, international drug trafficking, nuclear weapons, nuclear energy, waste and social injustice
- #12: From Wikipedia: A wicked problem is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. The use of the term "wicked" here has come to denote resistance to resolution, rather than evil…. A problem whose solution requires a great number of people to change their mindsets and behavior is likely to be a wicked problem. Therefore, many standard examples of wicked problems come from the areas of public planning and policy. These include global climate change,[7] natural hazards, healthcare, the AIDS epidemic, pandemic influenza, international drug trafficking, nuclear weapons, nuclear energy, waste and social injustice
- #14: https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/article/2017/05/05/ag-secretary-stresses-defense-desire
- #16: From Wikipedia: A wicked problem is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. The use of the term "wicked" here has come to denote resistance to resolution, rather than evil…. A problem whose solution requires a great number of people to change their mindsets and behavior is likely to be a wicked problem. Therefore, many standard examples of wicked problems come from the areas of public planning and policy. These include global climate change,[7] natural hazards, healthcare, the AIDS epidemic, pandemic influenza, international drug trafficking, nuclear weapons, nuclear energy, waste and social injustice
- #19: From Wikipedia: A wicked problem is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. The use of the term "wicked" here has come to denote resistance to resolution, rather than evil…. A problem whose solution requires a great number of people to change their mindsets and behavior is likely to be a wicked problem. Therefore, many standard examples of wicked problems come from the areas of public planning and policy. These include global climate change,[7] natural hazards, healthcare, the AIDS epidemic, pandemic influenza, international drug trafficking, nuclear weapons, nuclear energy, waste and social injustice
- #20: https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/article/2017/05/05/ag-secretary-stresses-defense-desire
- #21: https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/article/2017/05/05/ag-secretary-stresses-defense-desire
- #22: From Wikipedia: A wicked problem is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. The use of the term "wicked" here has come to denote resistance to resolution, rather than evil…. A problem whose solution requires a great number of people to change their mindsets and behavior is likely to be a wicked problem. Therefore, many standard examples of wicked problems come from the areas of public planning and policy. These include global climate change,[7] natural hazards, healthcare, the AIDS epidemic, pandemic influenza, international drug trafficking, nuclear weapons, nuclear energy, waste and social injustice
- #31: From Wikipedia: A wicked problem is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. The use of the term "wicked" here has come to denote resistance to resolution, rather than evil…. A problem whose solution requires a great number of people to change their mindsets and behavior is likely to be a wicked problem. Therefore, many standard examples of wicked problems come from the areas of public planning and policy. These include global climate change,[7] natural hazards, healthcare, the AIDS epidemic, pandemic influenza, international drug trafficking, nuclear weapons, nuclear energy, waste and social injustice
- #33: Email or call me if you have suggestions for methods to measure outcomes you think would be helpful to us.
- #37: https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/article/2017/05/05/ag-secretary-stresses-defense-desire