Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2008SD135B

Simulating the Soil Erosion from Land Removed from CRP

Institute: South Dakota
Year Established: 2008 Start Date: 2008-03-01 End Date: 2011-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $31,710 Total Non-Federal Funds: $64,747

Principal Investigators: Todd Trooien, David Clay, Dennis Todey

Project Summary: A survey of South Dakota producers has indicated that large areas of land in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) could be returned to grain production in the next four years. Such a land-use change could have large effects of the quality of the states waters. Keeping the land in CRP will be difficult because the economics of grain production are more favorable now than they were when the CRP program was implemented. However, the extent of water quality degradation because of loss of CRP is not considered when setting CRP lease rates. CRP renewal decisions will be made before extensive field research can be completed, so this project will use a simulation approach. This project will use a calibrated simulation model to estimate the extent of increased soil erosion due to land use change from CRP to grain production under a variety of management scenarios. Calibration data will be collected at a field site already instrumented with most of the equipment needed.