The US Cornbelt leads North American production of intensively managed, row-crop corn and soybeans. While highly productive, agricultural management in the region is often linked with nonpoint source nutrient pollution that negatively impacts water quality. Presently, conservation programs designed to install best management practices (BMPs) to mitigate agricultural nonpoint source pollution have not been targeted to those areas of the landscape that contribute disproportionately to surface water quality concerns. We used an innovative spatially targeted conservation protocol coupled with a GIS-based landscape planning tool to evaluate the cost and effect on water quality from nitrate-nitrogen loss under alternative landscape scenarios in an Iowa watershed. Outputs indicate large reductions in watershed-level nitrate-nitrogen loss could be achieved through coordinated placement of BMPs on high-contributing parcels with limited reduction of cultivated land, resulting in improved surface water quality at relatively low economic costs. For example, one scenario, which added wetlands, cover crops, and saturated buffers in the watershed, required the removal of <5% of cultivated area to reduce nitrate-nitrogen loss by an estimated 49%, exceeding the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy goal for enhancing water quality. Annualized establishment and management costs of landscape scenarios that met the nonpoint source nitrogen reduction goal varied from $3.16 to $3.19 million (2017 US dollars). These results support our hypothesis that water quality can be improved by targeting high-contributing parcels, and highlights the potential to minimize tradeoffs by coupling targeted conservation and planning tools to help stakeholders achieve water quality outcomes within agricultural landscapes.
Keywords: Best management practices; Landscape planning; Spatially targeted conservation; US Cornbelt; Water quality.