Master of Arts / Department of Geography / John A. Harrington Jr / Environmental degradation is a major concern in agricultural landscapes. Innovative tools
and methods will be necessary to identify and deal with the ongoing environmental impacts of
past and present agricultural practices. The use of scenarios in environmental modeling is one
way to address these concerns. Recently a group of researchers devised a framework for creating
future land cover scenarios for two physiographic regions in Iowa. Based on that work, a suite of
scenarios were created for Antelope Creek watershed in the Northern Flint Hills of Kansas. The
Antelope Creek scenarios represent conditions pre Euro-American settlement, present day,
increased intensification of agricultural production, enhancement of water quality, and
enhancement of biodiversity. These scenarios were then modeled using the Soil and Water
Assessment Tool (SWAT). Additional model runs were completed to compare SSURGO and
STATSGO soil datasets. Results indicated that reductions in discharge, total suspended
sediment and various nitrogen and phosphorus loads could be achieved by implementing modest
changes to agricultural management practices. Results also indicated that a higher detail soil
dataset such as SSURGO lead to slightly higher loads than with STATSGO data.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:KSU/oai:krex.k-state.edu:2097/1417 |
| Date | January 1900 |
| Creators | Burkitt, J. Beau |
| Publisher | Kansas State University |
| Source Sets | K-State Research Exchange |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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