Hello again everyone and welcome to week two of our course. In lecture one for this week, I want to talk a little bit about some of the big picture examples of water bodies in this country that are challenged by water quality. And focusing a little bit on the state of Florida, I know a little bit about this particular state and talk a little bit about some of the, the processes or the, the challenges in the state of Florida. If we start off a few of the, the water bodies I'd like to just pay tribute to, the Mississippi River watershed and the Gulf of Mexico. Mexico. The Chesapeake Bay, which is an area that I'm very familiar with, having grown up in that area of this country, and then a little bit about some of the water bodies in the state of Florida. I consider the state of Florida to be a very interesting state from the standpoint of looking at, At water quality in particularly I'm looking at how agriculture and our natural resources work together. And I don't want to ignore the fact that there are other many other situations around the world with declining water quality. Black Sea The Baltic Sea and Lake Taihu in China would be some that come to mind. When we look at the Mississippi River and it's watershed, we can't help but be struck by the size of it. And if you look at the insert down here in the lower right-hand corner, you can see the proportion of the United States that is covered by the Mississippi River and its watershed. A watershed is simply a description of a land area where the water above and below essentially drains and ends up at one point. In this particular case, the Gulf of, Of Mexico. If you look at the Mississippi river watershed what kinds of things do you see most, most rapidly? The first things that I see are the colors on the, the map. The dark green for the wooded areas, the natural areas. The light green, which is agriculture, the yellow areas are mostly grasslands Unimproved areas. And then also the red splotches, which are the urban areas. And so one of the things they were first struck by, by looking at this watershed is the massive coverage of this watershed by agriculture. And so we're going to look at a little bit of agriculture in this particular watershed. The other thing that you notice would be that the urban areas don't cover a large amount of land. But nonetheless they contribute tremendously to the potential for water pollutants in these in this, watershed. And that's because there are so many people, all bringing in groceries, and eating, and producing waste that has to be dealt with in those areas. But the thing we want to focus on is that no matter what the source of the nutrients in this watershed, they all end up in the Mississippi River, and ultimately in the Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi watershed covers a half of this country. That might be surprising to, to some. It's 60% agriculture, so agriculture land utilization or land management in this watershed is the dominant land use form. And sediments and nutrients are two of the more common problems in the Mississippi watershed. So where do they come from, would be the question. Some come from agriculture. Some come from other land uses. An example would be urban areas, where we fertilize our lawns, and our gardens. So those are some of the, the more important pollutants. Many years ago scientists and farmers in this watershed figured out ways to grow crops on these relatively heavy soil Soils. They have a lot of clay and silt content, and because of that do not drain very well. So that makes them a challenge in the spring because the melting snow and the rainfall make it very difficult for timely planting operations. So people figured out that if you drain these farms, these soils, by what is called sub-surface tile drainage, in the lower right hand corner you see the original old clay tiles Today plastic tiles are laid in the ground. You see the, the insert with the machine here putting the tile underground in a field. This tile drainage had some major positive benefits to the farmer it allowed soil moisture to be controlled much more carefully so that higher yields and reduced flooding of these fields resulted. And this was an economic advantage to farmers and a driving force for tile drainage in this area. It has also been learned since then, that, because of the drainage, of these soils. That opens up the possibility for more storage of the fields due to untimely rain. And so this is important for, nutrients like phosphorus. So if you can keep the phosphouros, keep the soil in the fields, then that's a benefit, because phosphourus moves with the soil particles that would be coming off of the field, from surface erosion. With the tile drainage in place, surface erosion is, is reduced tremendously. So that's a benefit for phosphouros pollution. Reduces phosphourous pollution in the water bodies. Based. Nitrogen is a little bit different because Nitrogen can move through these soils, even though they're heavy and can end up in the tile drains. And one of the things that we're going to talk about through the course is how farmers have learned to adopt best management practices to reduce the amount of Nitrogen that gets into these, tile drains. For example, selecting the right rate of nitrogen using cover crops that would take out residual nitrogen after a, a crop. The other thing that's coming to be studied more in the last few years Are the ditches and canals that drain these fields. I've showed you a ditch here with the, with the pipes coming out from the fields. This particular farmer keeps the ditch Clean, scraped free of plant material. But some recent research has shown that if these ditches and canals are allowed to vegetate, that the plant materials can help absorb nutrients and pesticides in that drainage water. So there's a lot of things, tile drainage has been very important in this part of our agriculture industry in this country. And has a lot of advantages and also some challenges that we're going to learn about. The nutrients that come off and sediment that comes of this agriculture area in the upper mid west eventually ends up in the Gulf of Mexico. This picture shows you a photo from space of a algal bloom. And that's the red color and the yellow. So as the, as the pollutants enter the water body they encourage the growth of, of algae and you get these blooms. These blooms then can grow, close off light to the submerged aquatic vegetation, and as the bloom, as the algae and the bloom dies and decomposes in the water, then that process uses oxygen, and takes oxygen out of the water, and you get the so called dead zones. Another water body of particular interest, is the Chesapeake Bay, watershed. Again, a large, watershed. Not as large, for sure, as the Mississippi River but one in the eastern part of this country that covers several states. The Chesapeake Bay watershed also is dominated by urban. Cities on mostly the western and the northern extremes of the bay and also agriculture, particularly on the eastern part eastern shore of the bay. Agriculture, in this particular area, is also dominated by polt, by a poultry industry. And, of course, poultry industry, results in significant amounts of poultry manure. And farmers use poultry manure, on their, on their fields, as a source of nutrients. Six states are covered by this watershed. So water from six states drains and eventually ends up in the Chesapeake Bay. There is a lot of agricultural influence plus several metropolitan areas that contribute nutrients and sediments and other pollutants to the Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake Bay has a major seafood industry. And that's a major concern to this part of the, of the country. Oysters are depicted her in this picture. This is a major seafood delicacy in that part of the, of the country. This gentleman is showing us how he harvests oysters with a tong off the bottom of the rivers and the bay. Another delicacy, seafood delicacy is the striped bass. This fish we called rock fish as I was growing. Enough and you can see by the, the graph her if you look back in the 50s and 60s, this was a large seafood industry. And then in the 80s, the numbers of fish declined precipitously to almost zero. In fact, during the 80s There was a moratorium on taking of striped bass. As the overfishing was stopped, and the water quality improved. You can see in the right, rectangle, how the populations of striped bass have returned, remarkably. And now you can find, striped bass in the restaurants. And this is a major, an example of a major success story, of a, industry that has been brought back because people focused on reducing the, partly, and because they focused on reducing the pollution. I don't want to leave the Chesapeake Bay without acknowledging the Maryland Blue Crab. Again, another delicacy and a favorite of mine. This is another one of these seafood industries that's been affected by water quality and the populations are returning. The Chesapeake Bay was so important to this country in terms of protecting the seafood industry and the aquatic life. That the president recently issued an executive order to try to increase the efforts and the resources that are put on protesting and restoring the Chesapeake Bay, with particular emphasis on the seafood industry. And so for example, I mentioned the farmers, using poultry manure to their benefit. And also benefiting the poultry industry because now they have a place to use a waste produced in their industry. So this Executive Order encouraged the development and deployment of best management practices for agriculture. What is the right rate for poultry manure? How do you protect your fields so that poultry manure and the nutrients associated with it do not run off from the fields? These are all issues that are addressed. And so an Executive Order such as this has a very positive impact on improving the, the water quality in that area. If we come to Florida and look at, at Florida as a state. Florida's not a large state as states out west go. It's not a small state either. Has a fairly large land mass. There are many, many farms in this state. People may not realize almost 50 thousand farms in the state of Florida. Some people think Florida is Nothing but urban. And sometimes when you try to drive in our traffic, that's the conclusion many people would reach. A lot of this state is covered by farmland, 25%. And 45% of it by natural resource is forests. It's definitely not an entirely urban state when 70% of the state land mass is covered by farms and forests. Another 20% by water bodies. Rivers, lakes, and streams, Lake Okeechobee, for example. And a small amount is actually covered by the urban, much the same as saw in the Mississippi River watershed. But those urbanites have a major impact on water quality. So Florida, some would argue, is not. Urban. And we'll see some examples of agriculture in this state that would confirm that, that conclusion. The state of Florida is dominated, our economy is dominated, of course, by tourism Everyone wants to come to Florida and enjoy the beaches, the white sandy beaches, they want to come to Florida and enjoy the amusement parks and an important industry that most people don't think about for Florida, especially in north Florida, are spr,[COUGH], excuse me, are our springs. People come here from all over the world to dive in our natural springs. And so those are cherished in this state, and something that we'll learn a little bit about deserving of protection. Obviously construction and development has been big in this state especially during the early years of, Of the 2000s, of course, that's slowed down a little bit now with the economic, challenges but it's interesting to note how important big agriculture is to this state's economy. 12 to 15% of the state's gross domestic product due to agriculture and one important thing to note about agriculture and this is probably true of agriculture the world over. And that is, the steadiness of its contribution to the state's economy. Back in 2001, when the, the, Twin Towers were attacked, nobody wanted to travel, no tourists. So Florida tourist industry essentially came to a standstill. But agriculture kept going. Producing food, growing crops, kept people hired. And it was a very steadying, impact on the state's economy at that time. And probably helped, and very much, To, keep the state, moving, along, economically. Half a million jobs associated with agriculture in this state. So I use those data and those points to show you how important agriculture is to a state like Florida. Florida's like a lot of other states and countries around the world with increasing population. You can see how the population of the state of Florida has increased. Soon to be 20 million, people. Lot of people in this state. Lot of people contributing, to our water, quality. Florida has a lot of natural resources. I'm amazed at the variety of natural resources that are in this state. Most everyone knows about the Everglades there. Maybe you haven't visited the Everglades Park. We have a lot of lakes, a lot of rivers. Our bays are very important. All along our coastal areas you'll find bays and estuaries. Of course the Gulf of Mexico is our neighbor. In northern and central Florida we have numerous springs. And these are underground areas where the ground water can come to the surface. And caverns are present, and a lot of people like to cave dive in these springs. They come from all over the world and spend a lot of money in northern Florida to come and, and dive in our nice clear springs. Our groundwater, the state is underlaying by a huge aquifer from which we draw water for drinking and also for irrigating. So, these natural resources abound in this state and the question becomes how does agriculture, how do urban areas coexist with our natural resources? And what are some of the things focusing on agriculture, some of the practices that we use to grow crops and take care of animals that might negatively impact from a water quality point of view, our natural resources? And what are some of the things that we can do to help protect our natural resources? If you look at this state, before 1900, on the left, you'll see that the state was dominated by natural resources. Forested areas, grasslands, wetlands, and marshes. And then you fast forward 100 years, and you see how the land. Use pattern has changed, dramatically. It's gone from trees and wetlands to urban areas in the white. And farmland, with a little bit of the wetlands remaining down here in the Everglades. So we've changed drastically, how the land in this state is now being managed. Some think that that's been negative, but there's always positives that go with the negative. Because, for example, that agriculture means jobs and means food production. As I mentioned earlier. Means a stabilizing force in the state's, economy. But nonetheless, we have to be careful about how we manage these lands so that we maintain the high quality of our natural resources because they're very important to the state's economy as well. It just so happens that people like to live in areas that also are the best areas to do farming. So I've showed you in some pictures here how, people, are starting to use the word encroach in terms of towns and developments on farmland. And you can see how concentrated, how people love to live on the water, in areas that probably a hundred years ago were producing crops, particularly horticulture crops. Here's a picture of a farm that I'm very familiar with in this state because I've done a lot of research on this farm. It's a tomato farm that is now, has a neighbor, has a community that was built. And a development that came in next door. And this farmer has mentioned to me. I sure hope my, my neighbors are good neighbors. And that's a challenge that many farmers in many agricultural areas in this states, in this state has back in the old days. When Florida and the southern part of Florida that we just looked at was mostly wetlands and marshes. It was basically uninhabitable, and in fact explorers, or people sent to make evaluations of southern Florida, reported back that it was not suitable for people to live. It was too much water and too many mosquitoes. But sooner or later man found a way to deal with the water, drain it off. And you can see some pictures, some old time pictures. The one in the upper left hand corner is basically Miami today. These canals and, and drainage canals were put in to get the water off the land and they also serve not only to get water off the land but now they can become waterfront property as it were for people. And the lower left hand corner shows you how a drainage canal is now, also a waterfront property. So, we came in and we were able to have the technology, to remove water from the land, and now be able to use the soil, the dried Soil for farming and for building on. And that's what we did to a great extent in southern Florida. This particular picture on the left shows you the blue lines that are some of the major canal systems that lead water off the central area, the Everglades area. Either into a river or off into the ocean or the bay, or the gulf. Excuse me. So water in Florida has a very interesting past. We first drained it because we wanted to develop the land and use it. And now today, with so many people In this area, an agriculture requiring water for irrigation. There's pressure on our water supply in, in this area. There's an interesting book called Mirage by Cynthia Barnett that tells a very fascinating story about the history of water in Florida. Lake Apopka is another example, like the Everglades, of an area, a large lake that was used, the land around it was used for farming back in the late 1800s. Lake Apopka, as you can see here in this picture, is near Orlando in the central part of the state. Lake Apopka, again, was a major agriculture area. And these pictures show you how influenced and affected and impacted the lake is by the land uses on its shores. The algal bloom in the bottom right-hand corner. In the bottom right, left-hand corner, you see how this lake, like Lake Okeechobee, and like the Everglades area, was drained so that, farms could come in and grow food, particularly in the wintertime. That was a very important part during World War II, to produce food during that time. So if you go back through a quick timeline of Lake Apopka, I find these timelines very interesting; you start out in the 1800s with farming starting on the shores of Lake, of Lake Apopka, and then you go up through the World War II area, and when algal blooms started to show up in the lake. And of course urbanization really picked up Dramatically in this area. One of the major agriculture industries in this area around the lake was citrus. But in the nineteen eighties, we had several, a series of several freezes that took out the citrus. And those lands that were historically citrus groves Are now towns and shopping centres. And soin 1985 again a restoration program was developed because by now most of the fish In the lake had disappeared and the fish-cams which were a major tourist attraction and economic source in that area, had gone. And in fact, Lake Apopka was declared as the most polluted lake in Florida in the 1990's. And in 1988 there was a buyout process put in place to buyout most of the farms on the northern side of the lake that were growing crops in the organic soils, the old marsh soils, and that part of the lake was again flooded. And so, for someone like me that's been around for a long time in this state, I look at, this is Lake Apopka, and I look out across Lake Apopka And not too far out there, maybe a 1000 meters out,t is an area that I used to do research now covered by 10 or 12 feet of water. We did a lot of research back in the 70s and 80s to help farmers develop nutrient management programs that now are called best management practices. Rivers are very important to this state as well. I've given you 4 of our major rivers in this state. Maybe some of you have heard about some of these, surely you've heard about the Suwannee. These rivers in the state of Florida are very, very important and many of them traverse agricultural areas. And in the case of Swanee River, this a river that's associated with a lot of springs. Here's the Swanee River. And as you travel up and down the Swanee River, there are many, many springs that feed water into this river. And some of these springs are now having elevated levels of Nitrate Nitrogen, in them. The Swanee River's flow is mostly dominated by this spring flow, during the winter time because that's our dry, period in the state of Florida. Then, in the summer with increased rainfall and more runoff, even from natural areas The river can turn pretty dark brown from the tannins that come out of the organic matter in the natural areas. So this river is very important to the northern part of the state because of its, because mainly it's a major tourist attraction, particularly with it's associated springs. And if you look at the Suwanee River, the Suwanee River is flowing along here and down. And you look at the watershed area and you can see measurements that scientists have made on the ground water nitrate concentrations. And the darker the green, the higher the nitrate concentration. In these springs. And, many of these springs have shown increasing nitrate concentrations. So, these studies help identify and pinpoint likely sources of nitrate, contamination of the springs. And, you can see that anywhere from about a tenth or two-tenths of a part per million, all the way up to four, and some springs have even three or four times. That level of nitrate. So then question becomes an issue of identifying sources and determining how are we going to deal with those sources so that we can bring the nitrate levels down. So just to close with a few take homes we have numerous examples in this country and around the world of endangered water bodies Florida is a good example of how humans have impacted a land. My goodness. The numbers of people that come into the state every year, and what that impact is going to be. So a state like Florida that's heavily urbanized and yet very strongly agriculture With large, amounts of natural resources. Is a, is a very interesting place to study water quality, and study the impact of sustainable land management on our water quality. Florida's also, by that same token, a very good example of the many approaches that can be taken, to manage and improve, water quality. And next time we'll take a look at some of the, more specifically about some of the interesting agriculture enterprises in this state. And we can think about how that a particular enterprise may or may not impact the, the water quality, and what those farmers might be doing, or could be doing to mitigate against pollution from their farms.
