Maximizing the water quality benefits of wetlands in croplands

Key Takeaways

Nutrient loads from croplands continue to negatively affect surface water quality, despite considerable investments in and adoption of agricultural conservation practices aimed at reducing nutrient losses.

Numerous studies indicate that effective restoration and management of wetlands in and adjacent to cultivated croplands could reduce surface and subsurface nutrient loads to downstream waters.

Current drainage basin-scale models do not effectively account for the local-scale processes that are important in understanding the functional variability of wetlands and their potential as conservation practices across different spatial and temporal scales.

Findings presented here from a literature review and simulation modeling study help inform bottom-up field-scale modeling of nitrogen and phosphorus dynamics and improve our understanding of the capacity for wetlands to provide nutrient retention services in agricultural drainage basins to inform strategic agricultural wetland restoration