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Potential Pollution Trade-Offs in Agricultural Drainage Water Management
Type of Session
Poster Presentation
Abstract
Agricultural practices must develop strategies to reduce nutrient runoff from farmlands. Research suggests that one strategy is a best management practice (BMP) by which water levels are elevated to favor subsoil denitrification to reduce nitrogen leaching into groundwater and streams. Despite documented success in nitrate reduction, there is a risk that potent greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4) could be produced, in which case the practice would be swapping one form of pollution for another. Static soil chambers were installed in a drainage water managed corn-soybean system on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Emissions, soil moisture content, and soil nitrate measurements were collected and analyzed to evaluate for differences between treatment and control plots as under standard farm management practices. Preliminary results reveal that there are detectable differences in N2O and CH4 emissions between fields. There are also significant relationships between soil moisture, soil nitrate content and N2O emissions. This study enables us to more accurately quantify this pollution swapping concern and demonstrates the efficacy of reducing nutrient runoff compared to risks of increased greenhouse gas emissions for a BMP that has transformative potential for sustainable agriculture. This research relies on the cooperation of researchers in multiple fields of study working directly with farmer owned and operated land. The foci of this presentation are dissemination of preliminary empirical results and lessons learned by scientific collaboration.