Agricultural Drainage Tile Density Compared to Natural Soil Drainage Ross DiFalco
Michigan State University
Seasonal Algal Blooms Results
Methods
Drainage Density per County
Average Drainage Density 163 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 county
Erie-126 meters tile per acre
Hancock-182 meters tile per acre
Henry-212 meters tile per acre
Lucas-172 meters tile per acre
Ottowa-120 meters tile per acre
Putnam-216 meters tile per acre
Sandusky-205 meters tile per acre
Seneca-194 meters tile per acre
Wood-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: [email protected]
Credit to Richard Johansen for help and guidance throughout the research
process
Erie County
Ohio Sea Grant to the University of Toledo, “Mapping drain tile and modeling
agricultural contribution to nonpoint source pollution in the western Lake Erie
basin”
