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The Effects of Agricultural Land-Management Practices on Surface and Ground Water in the Piedmont of North Carolina

USGS Yearbook Fiscal Year 1989
By Cathy L. Hill and Douglas A. Harned


Abstract

Agricultural practices, such as how the land is tilled and how much and in what manner pesticides and herbicides are used, are major sources of sediment, nutrients, and synthetic organics in surface-water runoff and of nutrients and organics in ground water. The extent, however, to which agricultural practices serve as a nonpoint source of pollution is largely a function of how the agricultural land is managed.

Farmers can use land-management practices that control erosion, increase soil moisture, and reduce the transport of farm chemicals and fertilizer in runoff from the fields. These methods, which are generally referred to as best-management practices, include development of grassed waterways and field borders, strip cropping, contour farming, and crop rotation. In contrast, when traditional or standard land-management practices are used, waterways are poorly maintained, crop production is continuous and without rotation, and the rows are plowed straight without regard to slope or topography.

To better define how agricultural land-management practices affect water quality, the USGS in cooperation with the Guilford Soil and Water Conservation District and the U.S. Soil Conservation Service began a 6-year study in 1984 of four small basins in the Piedmont of North Carolina. The Piedmont, a physiographic province extending from Virginia through Alabama, is characterized by clayey soils, rolling topography, and abundant rainfall. This area was chosen because of the highly erosive nature of the soils and the ongoing local effort to convert existing farmland to best-management practices. Results of this study should be transferable to similar agricultural lands throughout the Piedmont physiographic region of the Southeastern United States.

The study is designed to monitor chemicals applied to the land through farming practices as well as nutrients resulting naturally from atmospheric deposition. It also monitors water quantity and quality of overland runoff, concentrations of chemical constituents percolating through the clay soils in the unsaturated zone, and constituents reaching the ground water. Farmers cooperating in the study are helping keep detailed records of the chemicals applied to their fields and of their farming activities such as plowing. Data collection is scheduled to end September 1990.


An expanded abstract is available through the ALBE NAWQA pages

Citation:

Hill, C.L., and Harned, D.A., 1990, The effects of agricultural land-management practices on surface and ground water in the Piedmont of North Carolina, in United States Geological Survey Yearbook, fiscal year 1989, p. 36-38.


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Raleigh, North Carolina 27607
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