This study investigates the implications of treating different environmental benefits as the primary target of policy design. We focus on two scenarios, estimating for both of them in-stream sediment, nutrient loadings, and carbon sequestration. In the first, we assess the impact of a program...

The effectiveness of conservation practices depends on their placement on the fields within the watershed. Cost-effective placement of these practices for maximum water quality benefits on each field requires comparing a very large number of possible land-use scenarios. To address this problem,...

The Raccoon River Watershed (RRW) in West-Central Iowa has been recognized as exporting some of the highest nitrate-nitrogen loadings in the United States and is a major source of sediment and other nutrient loadings. An integrated modeling framework has been constructed for the RRW that...

The size, scale, and number of subwatersheds can affect a watershed modeling process and subsequent results. The objective of this study was to determine the appropriate level of subwatershed division for simulating sediment yield. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model with a...

The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was used to assess the impacts of potential future climate change on the hydrology of the Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB). Calibration and validation of SWAT were performed on a monthly basis for 1968-87 and 1988-97, respectively; R2 and...

A validation study has been performed using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model with data collected for the Upper Maquoketa River Watershed (UMRW), which drains over 16,000 ha in northeast Iowa. This validation assessment builds on a previous study with nested modeling for the UMRW...

This study investigates the carbon sequestration potential and co-benefits from policies aimed at retiring agricultural land in the Upper Mississippi River Basin, a large, heavily agricultural area. We extend the empirical measurement of co-benefits from the previous focus on environmental...

Data from seven Management Systems Evaluation Areas (MSEM) were used to test the sensitivity of a leaching model, PRZM-2, to a variety of hydrologic settings common in the Midwest. Atrazine leaching was simulated because the use of atrazine was prevalent in the MSEA studies and it frequently...

The United States has invested large sums of resources in multiple conservation programs for agriculture over the past century. In this paper we focus on the impacts of program interactions. Specifically, using an integrated economic and bio-physical modeling framework, we consider the impacts...

The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model is a continuation of nearly 30 years of modeling efforts conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service. SWAT has gained international acceptance as a robust interdisciplinary watershed modeling tool, as...