Location: Soil Drainage Research
Project Number: 5080-13210-003-039-A
Project Type: Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: May 1, 2025
End Date: Jul 30, 2028
Objective:
Quantify the water and soil quality response of conservation practices.
- Quantify the water quantity and quality response in surface and subsurface
drainage waters following implementation of conservation practices across multiple
fields within the USDA ARS EoF network (Williams et al., 2016).
- Quantify changes over time in biological, chemical, and physical soil health
indicators from one site (2 fields) within the ARS network and 2 sites (4 fields)
managed by Ohio State University.
Determine the relationship between soil health and water quality.
- Connect soil health changes to water quality signatures (N and P) across sites
with a range of soil health practice history.
Approach:
A paired edge-of-field approach will be used to assess the impact of water and soil quality practices. Four paired sites (8 fields) have been instrumented with water quality sampling devices. In addition to water quality sampling, soil sampling will be conducted across the fields regularly to determine the biological, chemical, and physical soil health indicators. Various statistical approaches will be used to relate the soil health practices to water and soil quality.
