Agricultural Drainage Tile Density Compared to Natural Soil Drainage Ross DiFalco1,2, Alex Johanson1 and Kevin Czajkowski1

1University of Toledo, 2Michigan State University,

Seasonal Algal Blooms Results

Methods

Drainage Density per County

Average Drainage Density163 meters of agricultural meters tile per acre

•  Drainage from the Maumee watershed aggregate in the Western Basin of lake Erie

•  Excess nutrient outflow and meteorological conditions contribute to the formation of HABs.

•  HABs occurs primarily in late summer •  Non-point source pollution accounts for

much of the excess nutrients •  Agricultural tile drainage systems allow

for more water and nutrients to be transported off fields

Contact Information Agricultural Tile Drainage Densities

Lake Erie Algal Bloom in August, 2014 (NASA, 2014)

251 meters of tile per acre

58 meters of tile per acre

Drainage Index Tile drainage densities are a function

of total length of tile divided by the total acreage per field

•  Higher drainage densities result in higher volumes of water being drained

•  This subsequently means more phosphorous being removed from agricultural lands

•  The more P lost from agricultural fields, the more that ends up in the western basin of Lake Erie, and may contribute to HABs

Average Drainage Densities per countyErie-126 meters tile per acre

Hancock-182 meters tile per acreHenry-212 meters tile per acreLucas-172 meters tile per acre

Ottowa-120 meters tile per acrePutnam-216 meters tile per acre

Sandusky-205 meters tile per acreSeneca-194 meters tile per acreWood-258 meters tile per acre

Drainage Density & Natural Drainage

Step one •  Use of aerial imagery to detect tile drainage

systems •  True color as well as Color Infrared(CIR)

images used to detect differences in soil moisture

•  Hand digitizing of Agricultural tile drainage systems

•  Calculation of drainage density index

Step 2 •  Map of natural soil classes and drainage

using USDA ‘s SSURGO data •  Comparative analysis between hand-digitized

drainage density and natural drainage rates

•  Soil drainage map made of 552 SSURGO soil types that fall into 6 drainage classes

•  Correlation between natural soil drainage and agricultural tile drainage

•  Excess agricultural drainage may contribute to HABs

Acknowledgements

Publication Credit This project was aided by National Science Foundation Grant #NSF DBI-1461124 to the University of Toledo's Lake Erie Center, “Undergraduate Research and Mentoring- Using the Lake Erie Sensor Network to Study Land-Lake Ecological Linkages”. The grant award provided financial support, scientific and educational expertise from the UT Lake Erie Center and faculty from participating departments (Department of Environmental Sciences, Geography & Planning, Civil Engineering), and field and laboratory testing equipment and supplies. We thank the principal investigators: Dr. Carol Stepien and Dr. Kevin Czajkowski, the program manager Rachel Lohner, and teaching assistants Lukas Groat and John Dilworth for help and logistic support.

NSF REU Program #DBI-1461124 to The University of Toledo’s Lake Erie Center, “Undergraduate Research and Mentoring- Using the Lake Erie Sensor Network to Study Land-Lake Ecological Linkages”

•  There is a direct correlation between density of agricultural tile and Soils natural drainage rates

•  The regions of highest drainage densities are over areas of the poorest drained soils

•  However, a portion of fields utilize tile drainage even in well drained soils

•  Results show that the amount of drainage tile in the majority of regions may be very beneficial to the growth of crops due to corn soybeans and wheat all being around the same average density of drainage of 165 meters per acre.

•  Future research allowing for a quantifiable water discharged from drainage tile would help further understand nutrient loading into the Maumee Drainage Basin

Ross DiFalco Phone: 249-320-1569

Email: difalcor@msu.edu

Credit to Richard Johansen for help and guidance throughout the research process

Erie County