Water Management

“C and N mineralization following organic amendment additions varied at different soil moisture levels. While biochar and compost can increase GHG emissions, optimizing water management can help reduce GHG emissions.”

“Thirty years of expanding winter cover cropping and other conservation practices in Nebraska's Shell Creek watershed coincided with less frequent extreme flood events and downward trends in turbidity, total suspended solids, and total phosphorus — though the water quality declines were not statistically significant. Summer cropping intensified over the same period, showing conservation gains happened alongside, not instead of, production.”

“Cutting irrigation to 50% of crop ET over six years in Utah barely changed soil organic matter or aggregate stability, though warmer Cedar City saw ACE protein drop from 1.57 to 1.41 g/kg and Vernal soil respiration was 28% higher under full irrigation. Cover cropping was the standout for infiltration, raising field-saturated hydraulic conductivity to 24.62 cm/h versus 5.55 (tilled) and 3.42 (no-till) cm/h.”

“Twenty-seven years of organic no-till in central Ohio, comparing compost, manure, cover crop and fallow treatments, produced measurable differences in soil physical quality — bulk density, penetration resistance, water-stable aggregates, saturated hydraulic conductivity, organic carbon and plant-available water — at two depths, combined into a single soil physical quality index. The dataset offers a rare long-term benchmark for how organic amendments and continuous cover shape soil structure and water-holding ability.”

“After 27 years of no-till in central Ohio, annual cow manure (23.3 Mg/ha/yr) gave the highest plant-available water capacity in the top 20 cm (5.14 cm) and the highest surface water content (44.4% at pF 1.8) versus 35.8% under cover crops, mainly by building storage (meso) pores and lowering bulk density. Compost showed poorer pore-structure response, suggesting clogged mesopores, so manure was the more reliable amendment for improving water delivery.”

“Over 3 years in the Corn Belt, a Kentucky bluegrass perennial groundcover cut flow-weighted nitrate-N in tile drainage by 20% with no corn yield penalty, while a high-biomass wide-row interseeded annual cover crop cut nitrate 22% but slashed grain yield 20%. All cover systems lowered nitrate during a wet-summer leaching flush.”

“A University of Nebraska-built cable-and-sensor robot measures entire corn fields in fine detail, compressing years of hand data-collection in breeding and agronomy trials into a single season.”

“The natural background contribution from grasslands and forest lands is important to consider in research and management. To our knowledge, no study has compiled and analyzed this “reference” water quality from small natural grasslands and forests. Thus, our objective was to summarize nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and sediment loads in runoff fromthese referencewatersheds.Measured annual nutrient loadswere compiled from 13 grassland and nine forest reference sites across 12 North American regions.”

“A two-stage stochastic planning model for western Kansas irrigators under self-imposed 5-year pumping caps beat both actual farmer decisions (2013–2022) and average-rainfall deterministic planning, especially in dry years. Tighter pumping limits favor shifting from corn to sorghum and saving water in early years to spend later; stretching the allocation window past about 7 years adds little extra profit.”

“Mapping subsurface water pathways with ground-penetrating radar plus surface elevation explained corn and soybean yield variation far better than topography alone (error dropped from 23.7% to 15.3%, and to 10.0% when remote sensing was added). Even without costly subsurface surveys, adding surface flow accumulation cut error to 18.4%, making hydro-topographic zoning a practical basis for site-specific management.”

“The destruction of the South Vietnamese rice crop using an arsenic-based herbicide known as Agent Blue during the American Vietnam War was not a secret; however, it received little media attention in the United States.”

“Nitrate leaching into groundwater as a result of high N fertilizer rates to annual crops presents human health risks and high costs associated with water treatment. Intermediate wheatgrass is a low-input crop has the potential to produce profitable grain and biomass yields while reducing nitrate.”

“This study focused on assessing the influence of the riparian habitat on physical instream habitats in trout streams in southeastern Minnesota, USA.”

“Toward strategic management of shale gas development: Regional, collective impacts on water resources.”

“The Palouse region of Washington and Idaho, USA. (approximately 60,000 people in a rural setting) is entirely dependent on groundwater from two basalt aquifers for potable water.”

“A riskbased approach of reservoir flood control operations that incorporates ensemble streamflow predictions is developed for Lake Mendocino, a 111,000 acrefoot reservoir near Ukiah, California.”

“We introduce a new configuration of the Community Land Model which includes a fully prognostic water table calculation for a vegetated peatland.”

“A rapid flood risk assessment method for response operations and nonsubject matter experts community planning.”

“Mapping Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems in California.”

“Temporal evolution of green stormwater infrastructure strategies in three US cities.”

“Assessing water contamination risk from vegetation fires: challenges, opportunities and a framework for progress.”

“Boosting soil health and crop nutrients with locally sourced biochar and compost in Sacramento urban agriculture.”

“Impact of Coastal Wetland Restoration Plan on the Water Balance Components of Heeia Watershed, Hawaii.”

“Pathways for the Valorization of Animal and Human Waste to Biofuels, Sustainable Materials, and Value-Added Chemicals.”

“We present a state-of-the-art distributed Wireless Sensor Network-based autonomous measurement system with real-time remote data transmission that gathers data of snow depth, air temperature, air relative humidity, soil moisture, soil temperature, and solar radiation in physiographically representative locations.”

“Global Water Scarcity and Watershed Management Planning: A Case Study of Clear Lake, IOWA, USA.”

“Predicting redoxsensitive contaminant concentrations in groundwater using random forest classification.”

“Interacting effects of leaf water potential and biomass on vegetation optical depth.”

“Water in the Native World.”

“Investigating water use over the Choptank River Watershed using a multisatellite data fusion approach.”

“Quantification of salt dust pathways from a groundwaterfed lake: Implications for solute budgets and dust emission rates.”

“The rapid rise in natural gas extraction using hydraulic fracturing increases the potential for contamination of surface and ground water from chemicals used throughout the extraction process.”

“A modified surface energy balance algorithm for land (MSEBAL) based on a trapezoidal framework.”

“The Grape Remote Sensing Atmospheric Profile and Evapotranspiration Experiment (GRAPEX) is a multiscale remote sensing–based modeling system for application over vineyards.”

“Woody plant encroachment enhances soil infiltration of a semiarid karst savanna.”

“Conservation Planning for Ecosystem Services.”

“Prairie strips improve biodiversity and delivery of multiple ecosystem services from corn–soybean croplands.”

“Monitoring SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater during New York City's second wave of COVID-19: sewershed-level trends and relationships to publicly available clinical testing data.”

“Standard soil health frameworks built around raising organic matter in humid regions don't transfer well to arid and semi-arid Great Plains soils, where low rainfall caps SOM gains; dryland assessments need indicators tied to water-related functions instead. Gains in soil health indicators are largest when practices are stacked — reduced tillage plus residue retention, organic amendments, and more diverse, intensified rotations — rather than adopted singly.”

“Seasonal decline in leaf photosynthesis in perennial switchgrass is explained by sink limitations and water deficit.”

“This study demonstrates integrated modeling methods to assess water treatment costs over time associated with groundwater nitrate contamination.”

“The land sparing, water surface use efficiency, and water surface transformation of floating photovoltaic solar energy installations.”

“Trace Element Export from the Critical Zone Triggered by Snowmelt Runoff in a Montane Watershed.”

“Determining the Impacts of Wildfires on Peak Flood Flows in High Mountain Watersheds.”

“Evaluation of temperature-index and energy-balance snow models for hydrological applications in operational water supply forecasts.”

“Exploiting Earth Observation Data to Impute Groundwater Level Measurements with an Extreme Learning Machine.”

“Assessing Daily Evapotranspiration Methodologies from One-Time-of-Day sUAS and EC Information in the GRAPEX Project.”

“The Two-Source Energy Balance with a dual temperature (TSEB2T) model was used to estimate evapotranspiration and identify the impact of spatial domain scale under different vine phenological conditions.”

“We demonstrate how analytically supported planning for habitat restoration in stressed agricultural landscapes can recover biodiversity and create co-benefits during transitions to sustainability.”

“Longterm impacts of drain spacing, crop management, and weather on nitrate leaching to subsurface drains.”

“Water and productivity accounting using WA+ framework for sustainable water resources management: Case study of northern Iran.”

“Integrating the Water Planetary Boundary With Water Management From Local to Global Scales.”

“Low-intensity forest restoration does not increase surface water yields.”

“Modeling of tile-drained corn–soybean fields in Iowa (validated to within 6% for corn and 13% for soybean yields) showed drainage boosts soil oxygen in wet springs, which spurs deeper rooting that later buffers summer drought, raising yields about 6% — but it also increases subsurface flow and inorganic nitrogen leaching.”