Addressing the spatial disconnect between national-scale total maximum daily loads and localized land management decisions.

ABSTRACT: Regulatory watershed mitigation programs typically emphasize widespread adoption of best management practices (BMPs) to meet total maximum daily load (TMDL) goals. To comply with the Chesapeake Bay TMDL, jurisdictions must develop watershed implementation plans (WIPs) to determine the number and type of BMPs to implement. However, the spatial resolution of the bay-level model used to determine these load reduction goals is so coarse that the regulatory plan cannot consider heterogeneity in local conditions, which affects BMP effectiveness. Using the Topo-SWAT modification of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), we simulated two BMP adoption scenarios in the Spring Creek watershed in central Pennsylvania to determine if leveraging fine-scale spatial heterogeneity to place BMPs could a

SUBMITTER: Amin MGM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7317802 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature