Range condition as input to water quality monitoring in the northern Plains

Federal Clean Water Act requires that states develop Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) for water bodies. Once the state has developed an inventory of TMDLs, it is required to provide public notice of the report and have it approved by the Environmental Protection Agency. The South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is using the USDA’s annualized Agricultural Non-Point Source Pollution Model to determine what land use changes are required to meet TMDL goals (South Dakota DENR, 2006). Of the approximately 450 parameters required for running the model, several are related to the condition of range and pasture sites and their respective management practices. Range condition is highly correlated with the nature of runoff occurring in a site. In addition to assisting the DENR, USGS is interested in improving its overall ability to monitor Northern Plains range condition with particular emphasis on the seven state study area (Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming) being addressed by the Drought Monitoring, Carbon Cycle Research, Phenological Trends and other projects. It is understood than no one project can develop tools that adequately characterize the dynamics of the region’s rangelands, but by developing a suite of tools brought together from a number of projects there exists the opportunity to provide state, regional, and tribal land managers with the ability to address their particular needs.