Impact of Biofeedstock Production on Hydrology/Water Quality in Midwest and Southeast USA

Non-Technical Summary: The production of biofeedstocks for biofuels is likely to impact the hydrology and water quality of watersheds. Communities potentially impacted are increasingly concerned as to the impacts. At present, little is known regarding the magnitude of impacts of biofeedstock production on hydrology and water quality, although some researchers have speculated these impacts could be large. The project will leverage the investigators past and ongoing research and outreach efforts to quantify impacts of biofeedstock production systems on hydrology and water quality for areas within the Midwest and Southeast USA, disseminate the results, and provide a web-based tool that will allow stakeholders to perform further analyses. The long-term outcome supported by this national water resource project involves careful assessment of bioenergy feedstock production impacts on the environment, ecosystems and multi-regional agricultural water management. The following questions will be addressed through this project: What are the unintended environmental consequences of increased corn production to meet biofuel demands What are the environmental impacts of various second generation biofeedstock production systems to meet cellulosic ethanol demands Would the management of cropping systems involving corn silage meet cellulosic ethanol demands with minimal environmental impact What are the broad-scale water quality implications of energy crops, such as switchgrass, grown for bioenergy production on highly erodible soils This project will develop multi-regional agricultural land management practices that can be implemented to mitigate potential negative environmental impacts associated with biofeedstock production while meeting the biofuel production demand. The following results are expected from this project: 1. Development of web-based GLEAMS-NAPRA decision support tool that can be used by various stakeholders to evaluate the impacts of biofeedstock production and land use changes on hydrology and water quality. 2. Evaluation of regional differences in alternative biofeedstock production and associated hydrologic/water quality impacts. 3. Evaluation of alternative biofeedstock production hydrologic/water quality impacts relative to impacts of current crop management systems. 4. Development of educational and training materials, including a web-site incorporating state of the science related to environmental impacts of biofuel production that can be used by various stakeholders, including federal and state agencies, watershed groups, researchers, and county extension agents to incorporate water quality impacts on biofuel production decision making. 5. Increased community awareness and training to evaluate the impacts of biofeedstock production through various workshops and trainings provided by the project. <P> Approach: An integrated modeling approach will be used to evaluate the impacts of land management options associated with biofeedstock production. The National Agricultural Pesticide Risk Analysis (NAPRA) tool will be enhanced with an updated interface and soil database to quantify the long-term effects of land management practices associated with biofeedstock production. We will use this tool to evaluate the impacts of various biofuel production scenarios and associated land management on hydrology and water quality of the Midwest and Southeast U.S. Specifically, we will apply the modeling tool to various representative soils and likely biofeedstock production systems in Indiana, Iowa, Tennessee and Arkansas to utilize regional differences in land use, soils, and climate conditions to answer the research questions outlined above. An advisory group will be created that will provide feedback on decision support tools, and educational/outreach materials developed in this project. Training materials to demonstrate the effectives of the NAPRA decision support system will be developed. We will engage multidisciplinary and multi-regional participants in workshop activities and will evaluate the effectiveness of the decision support tool based on users' interaction. We will also develop a web site to archive information related to impact of biofuel production on hydrology and water quality. We will actively seek feedback from the participants of each workshop conducted. This will be done by preparing written evaluations that will be given to each participant during the workshop. The written evaluation will include information about the usefulness of the training and educational materials provided, usefulness of the decision support tool, and the likelihood that the project participant will include consideration of hydrologic/water quality impacts in making biofeedstock production decisions. Our group has routinely conducted hands on workshops for our web-based decision support tools (an average of 7 per year during the past 8 years with an average of 17 participants per workshop) and will use a similar format for the proposed workshops (brief presentations alternated with hands on sessions with feedback collected at the conclusion of the workshop). The results of the feedback and impacts will be summarized and documented in project reports as well as publications that result from this project. We will create feedback forms on the project web-site. Through this web-site form, a user can provide feedback on the usefulness of the information, means by which the tool and the education materials can be improved, and how the information provided helps users make better watershed management decisions.