Effects of Conservation Practices on Phosphorus Loss Reduction from an Indiana Agricultural Watershed

摘要

Excessive applications of fertilizers and manures on agricultural lands have greatly contributed to off-site losses of nutrients, and in particular are at least partially responsible for phosphorus (P) concentrations leading to harmful algal blooms and eutrophication problems in Lake Erie (Richards et al., 2002) and other water bodies. However, techniques that can reduce total and soluble phosphorus losses from croplands and drainage channels (also known as best management practices, BMPs) may be difficult to implement, due to high costs for implementation, the desire to maximize land area under active production, and the available labor's timing (Bosch et al., 2014). In addition, the effectiveness of BMPs can be expensive and difficult to evaluatethrough field experiments or watershed monitoring.