Expanding Agricultural Research in the Suwannee
River Basin -
A $600,000 increase in fiscal year 2002 funding
to the USDA-ARS Southeast Watershed Research Laboratory in Tifton, GA will support the
expansion of two efforts being conducted in partnership with the University of
Georgia’s Coastal Plain Experiment Station and Florida’s Suwannee River Water
Management District. The first effort is an expansion of the Watershed
Laboratory’s research and monitoring program to include the full Little River Basin
(1455 km2) in southern Georgia. This is the first phase of the expansion
and will extend the utility of research that has been conducted for the past 35 years on a
342 km2 sub-watershed in the headwaters of the basin. Subsequent phases
of expansion are planned so that the completed program will cover all of the Georgia
portion of the Suwannee Basin (~ 5000 km2) and will complement similar ongoing
efforts by the Suwannee River Water Management District in the Florida portion of the
basin. Completion of the program’s expansion will fulfill a critical need,
because this is the scale at which water quality will be managed by state and federal
regulatory agencies. When complete, the expanded program will provide real-time
characterization of rainfall, soil moisture, hydrologic flow, and water quality in the
Suwannee Basin. With our partners, we will couple this information with research on
improvements of Best Management Practices and evaluate the relationships between land use,
weather and climate, water quantity, water quality, and the impacts of BMP implementation
on agricultural profitability. A second project, also being implemented in
partnership with the UGA’s Coastal Plain Experiment Station, will evaluate the
impacts of irrigation water withdrawals on water quantity and quality and will develop
improved technologies for water and chemical management coupled to the real-time
monitoring systems. The outcomes expected from these expansions are the development of:
(a) a conceptual understanding of responses in natural resource and environmental systems
based on physical, chemical, and biological processes; (b) improved methodologies to
direct optimal use of soil and water resources in the production of quality food and fiber
while maintaining short- and long-term productivity requirements, ecosystem stability, and
environmental quality; and (c) publically available models and information based systems
to guide responsible management decisions for growers, action and regulatory agencies at
field, farm, and small and large watershed scales.