A Phosphorus Index transport factor based on variable source area hydrology for New York State

Abstract

The Phosphorus (P) Index concept is used in many states to help develop nutrient management plans for livestock agriculture to protect water quality. Although many P indices conceptually incorporate variable source area (VSA) runoff processes, they generally assume proximity to a water course is an adequate proxy of runoff risk. Here we propose a VSA-based transport factor that uses the topographic index concept to indicate runoff risk. We compared both transport factors based on the current New York State P Index and our VSA-based P Index to field measures of runoff probability across an abandoned agricultural site in upstate New York. We also compared transport factors and P indices using the current and VSA-based approaches on a farm in the Catskill Mountains of New York to evaluate differences at whole-field and farm scales. Field runoff-risk measurements were better correlated with VSA-based transport factor (r² = 0.63, α = 0.05) than with the current dissolved-P transport factor (r² = 0.40, α = 0.05). Although these point-scale differences in transport factor values translated into field-scale differences in transport factor, the net differences at the farm scale and in P Index were not very large. On a field-by-field basis, 12 out of 21 fields had different transport factor categories with the VSA method. However, the total land area classified as high risk changed very little between the two methods. There was more land classified as moderate risk using the VSA-based approach than using the current methods, due to some low risk areas being classified as higher risk and some high-risk areas being classified as lower risk. The VSA approach allows managers and producers to more easily manage farm units (e.g., fields) at finer resolutions both spatially and temporally, which will increase the options for managing nutrients on fields. These types of more rigorous links between management tools and physical hydrology provide valuable, more scientifically defensible information for improving our ability to control nonpoint source pollution.