NSF EPSCoRWater Dynamics Workshop

November 9-12, 2008Burlington, VT

Midwest

Important Water Resource Challenges - Midwest -

Water Quantity (unranked)

• 1. Effects of water consumption and conservation practices on instream-flows, groundwater recharge and water supplies, including ethanol production; realizing the maximum water use efficiency for irrigation (e.g., changing from gravity flow to center pivot) is a key factor

• 2. Invasive exotic species (e.g., purple loosestrife, salt cedar,

Phragmites), particularly in riparian buffer strips, stream channels, and wetlands

• 3. Climate change, especially the impacts of global warming and increased climate variability, particularly the frequency and severity of droughts and floods on water availability.

Important Water Resource Challenges - Midwest -

Water Quality (unranked)

• 4. Nitrate, uranium, arsenic, and pesticide contamination of drinking water supplies, and nitrate contamination of irrigation sources

• 5. Non-point source (NPS) nutrient and sediment inputs in lakes, streams and reservoirs, including toxic algae treatment and prevention, and establishing of TMDLs for nutrients

• 6. Potential surface and ground water contamination by “emerging” contaminants (including endocrine disrupting compounds), such as steroid hormones, nanomaterials, antibiotics, pesticides, surfactants, and disinfectants, from grain and livestock production, biosolids application, biofuel production, and municipal/residential wastewater sources

Important Water Resource Challenges - Midwest -

Water Institutions (unranked)

• 7. Creating and supporting more comprehensive, ongoing, real-time water monitoring, including stream gauging and cyberinfrastructure networks that are linked to predictive models, readily accessible to the public, and coupled with smart decision-support tools. Understanding the connection between surface and ground water is especially important

• 8. Aging water infrastructure, including drinking water distribution systems (esp. in small rural communities), wastewater treatment, storm runoff, irrigation systems, dams, levees, and canals

• 9. Water economics and water policy, including establishment of water markets and water banking, and recognition and development of water resources as a natural resource amenity for recreational use (incl. greater public access) and wildlife habitat

• 10. Creation of effective social systems to influence individual and institutional behavioral change for sustainable management of water resources, including a viable legal framework, ongoing financial support, and an increased focus on collaborative solution development.

Regional ExamplesWater Quantity• ET estimates in a variety of land use types (crop type,

tillage practice, soil types) and in critical habitats (eg, riparian buffers, to provide better model inputs

• Groundwater – surface water interactions• Mapping of invasive species statewide, as a basis for

understanding the potential impacts of global climate change, land use change, urbanization, etc.

• Modeling studies on the potential impacts of both grain-based and cellulosic biofuel production on water quant.

• Drought mitigation efforts (eg, sociological studies on public awareness, perceptions and adoption of new farming practices)

• Impacts of climate change on grass stabilization of sand dune systems (water budget – microclimate)

Regional Examples

Water Quality• Fate and transport of nitrogen and pesticide

contamination of ground and surface waters• Occurrence and impacts of EDMs on stream fish • Dynamics of freshwater HABs (fate of toxins, population

dynamics, use of sediment toxins to determine history of HABs)

• Restoration ecology of human-made water bodies• Better management practices in row crop agriculture to

avoid nutrient loss & eutrophication impacts downstream• Full cycle nutrient management studies for animal

husbandry industry

Regional Examples

Water Institutions• “Value of water” (eg, irrigation water availability,

lake views, recreation)• Alternative crop use vs. deficit irrigation

economics• Resilience based (“adaptive management”)

approach to large river recovery program• Role of science in water resource management

decision-making• Nature of democracy in regional water

governance

Resource Constraints/Needs

• Additional ET towers to create a regional network for ongoing estimates of water budgets, along with better 3-D models

• More baseline water resource data, including spatially explicit, real- or near-real-time (water quality);

• New generation of monitoring technologies (beyond pH, DO, turbidity, ammonium/nitrate-N, temperature!)

• Significantly more data on emerging contaminants and their impacts (ecosystems and human)

• Scaling studies, esp. regional-scale (meso-) climate models tied to watershed scale water quantity/quality (ex: riparian buffers, BMPs impacts?!)

Resource Constraints/Needs (cont’d)

• Socio-political studies on the most effective water management institutions, legal frameworks and allied policies, despite the notion that “setting” policy is no within the scientific realm - GOI

• More research on decision-making under uncertainty (need more people in this field!)

• Accelerated trend (?) toward blurred lines between “basic and applied science” - GOI

““You got to get some money!”You got to get some money!”Don KingDon King

Questions or Comments?