State Water Resources Research Institute Program
Project ID: 2012SD211B
Title: Identifying barriers for adopting new drainage technology among agricultural producers
Project Type: Research
Start Date: 3/01/2012
End Date: 2/28/2013
Congressional District: First
Focus Categories: Management and Planning, Agriculture, Water Quality
Keywords: Agricultural management practices, Psychology, Tile drainage, Water quality,
Principal Investigators: Benesh, Nickolas; Kjaersgaard, Jeppe H.
Federal Funds: $ 5,903
Non-Federal Matching Funds: $ 11,893
Abstract: Subsurface (tile) drainage on agricultural land with poor natural drainage allows more timely
field operation access and contributes to improved crop yields. While properly designed and
installed subsurface drainage typically reduces sediment and phosphorus losses, many studies
show that subsurface drainage enhances the movement of nitrate-nitrogen to surface waters.
Nitrogen is an essential plant nutrient, but excess nitrogen leads to eutrophication and hypoxic
conditions in aquatic ecosystems, particularly in estuaries. Many scientists suspect that nitrogen
from agricultural runoff in the Mississippi River Basin is a leading contributor to the annual
hypoxic zone in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Additionally, high concentrations of nitratenitrogen
in drinking water supplies pose a health hazard, especially for infants and pregnant
women, and are expensive to treat.
This creates a critical need among water managers and policy makers for strategies that minimize
nitrate losses through subsurface drainage of agricultural land in order to balance profitable
agricultural production with clean drinking water needs, environmental sustainability and the
security of future ecosystem services. There are several technologies for reducing the amount of
nitrate in drainage water available, including good management of nitrogen fertilizer, changes in
cropping systems or optimization of the drainage system design. However, these practices are
often not enough and it is necessary to have an edge-of-field treatment system to reach the goals
for decreasing the amount of nitrogen that is discharged into waterways to acceptable levels.
Several studies show that installing edge-of-field treatment systems are effective methods for
reducing nitrate concentrations of drainage flow. The most common treatment systems include
controlled drainage water management using drainage control structures, denitrifying bioreactors
and wetlands.
Some of the treatment technologies were developed several decades ago yet they have not been widely adopted by the agricultural producers. Our hypothesis is that the very modest adoption rate for these treatment systems relates to producers 1) not being informed about negative impacts of tile drainage, 2) are not informed about treatment options 3) feel environmental concerns regarding tile drainage are unwarranted or 4) lacks incentive. Our goal is to explore these barriers and identify incentives that are most likely to increase the adoption rate of these drainage water treatment systems and other water management innovations by agricultural producers.
We will collect and analyze data from producers attending workshops on drainage system design during the spring semester. Using these results we will create a more specific questionnaire to determine whether producers are motivated by extrinsic (e.g., profit) or intrinsic (e.g., right thing to do) reasons. The questionnaire will be used over the summer to gauge what would motivate non-early adapter producers to use new methods for water management.
This proposal will cover the efforts of two undergraduate research assistants who will be directly involved in every level of the project, from project planning, collecting data, to analyzing, to writing up the results, and deciding on the best way to apply the results. The students will gain experience conducting research and working on topics such as water management, special interest populations, public policy and questionnaire construction.
U.S. Department of the Interior |
U.S. Geological Survey
URL: http://water.usgs.gov/wrri/2012grants/2012SD211B.html
Page Contact Information: Earl Greene
Page Last Modified: Tuesday, 15-Jan-2013 02:49:53 EST
