Federal-state partnership yields success in remote sensing analysis of conservation practice effectiveness: Results from the Choptank River Conservation Effects Assessment Project

Excerpt

In the modern era of ecosystems management, considerable focus has been placed on implementing agricultural conservation practices to protect water quality. As a result, farmers are shouldering the responsibility for managing land and nutrient resources in a sustainable manner, despite the inherent nutrient inefficiencies associated with modern high-input cropping systems. To aid them, state and federal resources have been devoted to cost-share programs supporting implementation of agricultural best management practices. The question that naturally arises is, What are the actual conservation effects of these practices, given variability in farm management, landscape, and climate? Remote sensing data can help to answer this question by providing rapid measurement of vegetation dynamics associated with conservation practice implementation in the real-world landscape. When combined with site-specific agronomic information derived from environmental cost-share program enrollment records, satellite imagery analysis can provide a powerful tool for evaluating conservation practice effects, providing information for adapting future iterations of cost-share program implementation to promote the most effective and sustainable management practices.

In the Chesapeake Bay watersheds, the use of winter cover crops has been identified as an important conservation practice for reducing nutrient and sediment losses from farmland. Planting nonleguminous cover crops (rye, barley, and wheat) following the…