Investigating Spatiotemporal changes in water quality across a nested system of intensively managed prairie watersheds
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Date
2014-07-18
Authors
Penner, Amber
Ali, Genevieve
Petzold, Halya
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Abstract
The study of spatial and temporal patterns of watershed properties can provide a greater understanding of the drivers of hydrologic
change. This is especially true for water quality dynamics that are known to vary: 1) temporally as a function of antecedent conditions (wet, intermediate,
dry), seasons (spring, summer, fall), and events (snowmelt-‐driven, rainfall-‐triggered), and 2) spatially as a function of adjacent and upstream land-‐use
practices and topographical characteristics. Those spatiotemporal dynamics are especially understudied in cold and intensively managed Prairie landscapes.
Here we focused on a typical, mixed use Prairie watershed for which weekly average nutrient concentrations are available for the 2013 open water season:
weekly correlation coefficients were calculated between nutrient concentrations and watershed characteristics such as land use and land cover proportions,
mean watershed slope, and soil properties. This week-specific correlation analysis was done to allow the assessment of a) which landscape characteristics
influence water quality the greatest, and b) whether the influence exerted by specific landscape characteristics varies from week to week.
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Keywords
2014, Catfish Creek Watershed, water quality, prairie, spatiotemporal