Development of environmental performance indicators for watershed management
Abstract
Demonstrating the success of watershed management efforts is critical for securing future funding, gaining public support, and communicating water quality results to stakeholders. However, many community-based watershed management groups find that the monitoring methods they are using cannot effectively show the impact of their project. Environmental performance indicators, also known as environmental performance measures or performance indicators can be used to assess the impacts of watershed planning and implementation projects on water quality outcomes. The overall goal of this research was to develop a framework that watershed groups can use to examine the impacts of watershed management through the use of environmental performance indicators. Specific objectives were to (1) identify how watershed groups within Indiana are using indicators to document water quality outcomes, and determine what group, watershed, or project characteristics relate to water quality indicator use, (2) identify a set of core environmental performance indicators of watershed management success for Indiana, (3) compare estimated load reductions to target values based on project's goals and eco-regions, (4) assess the capacity of watershed groups to achieve a detectable change in water quality. Existing watershed management plans were assessed and telephone interviews were conducted to determine how Indiana watershed groups used indicators to document water quality outcomes, and which group, watershed, or project characteristics were related to water quality indicator use. Logistic regressions found that the number of environmental problems was the only significant characteristic related to tracking indicators after controlling for other factors. The study found that only 17 out of 30 watershed projects tracked any environmental indicators. Other projects attributed their inability to track environmental performance indicators to lack of funds, personnel turnover, issues with data storage methods, and especially the lack of BMP implementation. An expert panel process was used to gain statewide input for determining environmental indicators to track watershed management success in Indiana. Although this participatory process was not sufficient to achieve consensus on the best environmental indicators, it added value by bringing together practitioners' experience on what indicators are feasible to collect, and experts' scientific knowledge, which may result in improved acceptance of using the selected environmental indicators in the future. Eight core indicators were selected to guide future monitoring efforts. In order to compare water quality outcomes to water quality goals, load reductions from BMPs implemented in eleven watersheds were evaluated and compared to load reduction targets. Results showed that load reductions from BMPs implemented were rarely adequate to meet water quality targets, achieving only 1 to 5% of load reductions needed to meet nitrogen targets, and 5 to 100% of phosphorus targets. This research demonstrated a method of assessing water quality outcomes from monitored water quality data, but showed that most existing projects did not achieve the lower nutrient targets. Water quality improvements were also compared to the minimum detectable change for groups' water quality monitoring efforts. The BMPs implemented in the watersheds did not achieve enough load reduction from BMPs to meet a minimum detectable change for the majority of the sampling sites based on nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations. This analysis could help watershed groups revise their sampling schemes for future water quality monitoring based on minimum detectable change and minimum sample size estimates.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Frankenberger, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Agricultural engineering|Environmental engineering
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