Posted: April 3, 2024
USDA grant funds study to measure effectiveness in curbing water pollution
Penn State researchers are investigating riparian buffer performance in the headwaters of Mahantango Creek in Dauphin County and in the Halfmoon Creek watershed in Centre County. Photo credit: Tyler Groh
At a time when Pennsylvania is working to achieve water-quality improvements to meet the state's obligations for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay, a multidisciplinary Penn State research team is studying whether installed or established riparian buffers are working properly to prevent agricultural pollution.
Riparian buffers — areas that contain trees, shrubs and grasses planted adjacent to streams or wetlands — are managed differently from the surrounding landscape to provide conservation benefits. In agricultural areas, buffers intercept sediment, nutrients, pesticides and chemicals of environmental concern in surface runoff and in shallow subsurface water flow to reduce the amounts that get into waterways.
The most recent Watershed Implementation Plan that Pennsylvania submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calls for 83,000 acres of new riparian buffers along streams on agricultural lands. The estimated cost to establish those buffers exceeds $20 million annually through 2025. It would be helpful for state and federal officials to know how effective buffers really are, according to research team leader Heather Preisendanz, associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering.
Questions have emerged about the capabilities of existing buffers, she explained. A recent survey of 52 buffers at long-term agricultural research sites suggested that 27 were underperforming significantly, damaged by breaches called concentrated flow pathways. These torrents undermine buffers' integrity by "short-circuiting" them, enabling surface runoff to enter streams untreated.
"If we're going to put such a large portion of our eggs into the buffers basket, then we want to make sure that they are performing how we need them to," Preisendanz said. "Pennsylvania is relying on forested buffers to meet its phosphorus- and nitrogen-reduction goals."
Funded by a three-year, $750,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Preisendanz and colleagues will evaluate the role that concentrated flow pathways play in undermining the ability of riparian buffers to mitigate excess nutrients, sediments and pesticides. The researchers also will develop solutions for restoring and maintaining buffer integrity.
—Jeff Mulhollem
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