The Deep Creek Water Quality Initiative Project offers funds for you to protect water quality and prevent soil erosion! This project is to demonstrate Nutrient Reduction Strategy (NRS) practices which will address water quality priorities identified in the watershed.
Why install conservation practices?
Cover crops: reduce soil erosion, captures, recycles and redistributes nutrients, suppresses weed growth, minimizes and reduces soil compaction, increases soil organic matter.
Terraces: reduces soil erosion by breaking slopes into a series of shorter ones, protects water quality by intercepting agricultural runoff, helps prevent gully formation, makes it easier to farm steep slopes, and they improve soil quality and productivity by improving
Newtown creek is a 3.8-mile waterway located on the border of Brooklyn and Queens in New York City and was once a busy center for industrial activity. More than 50 factories were located along its banks, including oil refineries, petrochemical plants, sawmills, and lumber and coal yards. The Creek was also the site of one of the largest oil spill in the U.S. (EPA, 2007). As a consequence, the soil surrounding the area became polluted with toxic heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and was declared a Superfund site. The Superfund Program requires responsible parties to perform cleanups or reimburse the government for cleanups led by EPA. Superfund sites are hazardous to human health and to the environment. benz[a]anthracene,
7 The concept of the soil conservation way to limit the plowing, and to stop the tractors to pick up and release dust into the sky If the act was not put into place the land would continue to get worse, but only until the sky came.
Through our research we aimed to determine if there were any differences in water quality of both the north and south forks of Strawberry Creek. As time progresses and the environment changes it is important to keep track of how certain species are being impacted by these features, and how they cope with change. We hypothesized that due to the lack of pollution, the south fork will promote a greater diversity of macroinvertebrates. This was due to the fact that there was less runoff and trash that could be introduced to the water in the south fork, than there was in the north fork. We gathered data by analyzing the different organisms living in both forks. We collected a total of fifty vials composed of five organisms from each fork, and inspected them under microscopic view. After gathering data and identifying the different kinds of organisms living in the different forks we assessed whether the organisms from the samples could live in high or low resolution water. We also took a t-test to assess the probability of these differences being due to relevant factors or by chance. Our major findings suggest that organisms in the south fork showed a higher demand to living in cleaner water indicating that our hypothesis was correct.
Spring Lake Creek is located off of County road E in Sawyer County. The Spring Lake creek has a culvert that goes under County road E to Spring Lake. The culvert has the water flowing from Spring Lake into Spring Lake creek. With the road right by Spring Lake creek, one would think how much of the runoff from the road affect the water quality and invertebrate life. That is exactly the hypothesis a group from the Fresh Water Ecology class had come up with and wanted to experiment by testing two pools and two riffles. One set closest to the bridge and another away from the bridge. Historic events might have played a role in the conclusion of the experiment.
Areas Needing to Create Community Resilience: The King’s Beach Water Quality Project addresses King’s Beach which is an area in danger of flooding according to ‘Coastal Climate Change Study Final Report’ conducted by the town of Swampscott. The towns of Lynn and Swampscott Massachusetts are also classified as flood zones according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), allowing the location of the project qualify an area needing to create community resilience.
Another goal was to track changes in water quality, especially the expected reduction of nutrient inputs from the watershed from the installation and improvement of collection and treatment infrastructure in the County. Objectives of the AMP, in accordance with the ACJ are as follows:
Since cover crops help reduce soil erosion nutrients stay in the soil instead of running off into streams and rivers. Cover crops also reduces weeds which eliminates the need for herbicides. The use of legumes as a cover crop promotes biological nitrogen fixation. Therefore, the farmer or rancher may not have to apply nitrogen fertilizers (Reynolds). Altogether the participant receives many environmental and financial benefits from the program.
Soil organisms provide ecosystem services such as maintaining soil fertility and preventing soil erosion. Water, wind, ice, and other agents cause soil erosion, the wearing away or removal of soil from the land. Soil erosion reduces fertility because essential minerals and organic matter are removed. Erosion causes sediments and pesticide and fertilizer residues to pollute nearby waterways ( Wiley, 2009).
Slope protection systems are a great way to prevent runoff from entering water bodies, such as lakes. According to Mr. S. K Goyal, Managing Director of Spar Geo Infra – A Geotechnical company known for its innovative, excellent and quality services in technology, engineering and construction services: “Slope protection systems stabilize soils on embankments to prevent severe erosion caused by surface runoff. In addition, it also absorbs the runoff into designated areas of gravel, large rocks, or soil."
When we planted legumes than the soil erosion and water logging conditions will be less as compared to other crops. It is due to precipitation and runoff water level. Soil organic matter concentration increases in this way. It is the main benefit of legume to use as cover crop that reduces soil erosion and water level increases mineral content in the soil. Water up taking level of the plant also increases that helps in soil water holding capacity of
They found that the terraced fields in the Loess Plateau region results in higher soil moisture while maintaining soil fertility. This means that plants are able to absorb more water from the soil during the second crop. In the dry West China, such natural water conservation is significant in helping farmers grow their plants throughout the year. Terraced fields also tremendously reduced erosion in the region. Comparing the erosion modulus of regular sloped land and terraced land in the region, the erosion modulus of terraced land is about 1.8% that of the regular sloped land. This means that terraced land preserved and improved the soil in the region for sustainable agriculture. With better and richer soil, agriculture production yield increased dramatically, which generated a lot of revenue.
Land management includes pasture growth, sprinkler irrigation systems, fixing fences and fertilising paddocks. Farmers are more aware these days about environmental impacts caused by agricultural practices and implement ways to prevent degradation such as planting trees and shrubs to increase river bank stability to reduce soil erosion and fencing off river banks so the soil and plants will not be spoilt by a herd trampling on them.
Due to the short maturation periods, soil salinity decreases as the crops don’t spend as long taking nutrients and minerals out of the soil.
It has been a basic instrument for most of recorded history, and represents one of the major advances in agriculture. The primary purpose of ploughing is to turn over the upper layer of the soil, bringing fresh nutrients to the surface, while burying weeds and the remains of previous crops, allowing them to break down. It also aerates the soil, and allows it to hold moisture better. In modern use, a ploughed field is typically left to dry out, and is then harrowed before planting.The plough is a tool used in farming for initial cultivation of soil in preparation for sowing seed or planting. It has been a basic instrument for most of recorded history, and represents one of the major advances in agriculture. The primary purpose of ploughing is to turn over the upper layer of the soil, bringing fresh nutrients to the surface, while burying weeds and the remains of previous crops, allowing them to break down. It also aerates the soil, and allows it to hold moisture better. In modern use, a ploughed field is typically left to dry out, and is then harrowed before planting.The plough is a tool used in farming for initial cultivation of soil in preparation for sowing seed or planting. It has been a basic instrument for most of recorded history, and represents one of the major advances
Intercrops maintain the soil fertility as the nutrient uptake is made from both layers of soil.