Agriculture and the Quality of the Nation's Waters
Intensive studies by the USGS National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Project in agricultural areas provide insight into how agricultural activities have altered the natural flow of water and the way that agricultural chemicals enter streams and aquifers, and in particular how nutrients affect algal and invertebrate communities in agricultural streams.
We all have a connection to agriculture, which supplies a major part of the Nation’s food, feed, and fiber needs. Agricultural chemicals move into and through every component of the hydrologic system, including air, soil, soil water, streams, wetlands, and groundwater.
The results of these NAWQA agricultural-area studies are described in two USGS publications: Agriculture—A River Runs Through It—The Connections Between Agriculture and Water Quality (Circular 1433) and Understanding the Influences of Nutrients on Stream Ecosystems in Agricultural Landscapes (Circular 1437). Find additional publications under the Publications tab and presentations under the Multimedia tab.
Follow the links below to web pages on topics related to agriculture and water quality.
Regional Stream Quality Assessment (RSQA)
Below are multimedia items associated with this project.
Below are publications associated with this project.
Agriculture — A river runs through it — The connections between agriculture and water quality
Environmental settings of the South Fork Iowa River basin, Iowa, and the Bogue Phalia basin, Mississippi, 2006-10
Phosphorus and groundwater: Establishing links between agricultural use and transport to streams
Complexity of human and ecosystem interactions in an agricultural landscape
Groundwater and surface-water exchange and resultingnNitrate dynamics in the Bogue Phalia Basin in northwestern Mississippi
Thresholds of flow-induced bed disturbances and their effects on stream metabolism in an agricultural river
Nutrient and sediment concentrations and corresponding loads during the historic June 2008 flooding in eastern Iowa
Simulation of branched serial first-order decay of atrazine and metabolites in adapted and nonadapted soils
Environmental factors that influence the location of crop agriculture in the conterminous United States
Discrete and continuous water-quality data and hydrologic parameters from seven agricultural watersheds in the United States, 2002-09
Response of algal metrics to nutrients and physical factors and identification of nutrient thresholds in agricultural streams
Subsurface transport of orthophosphate in five agricultural watersheds, USA
Field tracer investigation of unsaturated zone flow paths and mechanisms in agricultural soils of northwestern Mississippi, USA
Intensive studies by the USGS National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Project in agricultural areas provide insight into how agricultural activities have altered the natural flow of water and the way that agricultural chemicals enter streams and aquifers, and in particular how nutrients affect algal and invertebrate communities in agricultural streams.
We all have a connection to agriculture, which supplies a major part of the Nation’s food, feed, and fiber needs. Agricultural chemicals move into and through every component of the hydrologic system, including air, soil, soil water, streams, wetlands, and groundwater.
The results of these NAWQA agricultural-area studies are described in two USGS publications: Agriculture—A River Runs Through It—The Connections Between Agriculture and Water Quality (Circular 1433) and Understanding the Influences of Nutrients on Stream Ecosystems in Agricultural Landscapes (Circular 1437). Find additional publications under the Publications tab and presentations under the Multimedia tab.
Follow the links below to web pages on topics related to agriculture and water quality.
Regional Stream Quality Assessment (RSQA)
Below are multimedia items associated with this project.
Below are publications associated with this project.