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Research Effort For Spatially Referenced Regressions on Watershed (SPARROW) Model to Further Investigations of Hypoxia in Coastal Ecosystems(2008)

Project Description:
Research Effort For Spatially Referenced Regressions on Watershed (SPARROW) Model to Further Investigations of Hypoxia in Coastal Ecosystems: This project is subcomponent of the Coastal Hypoxia Research Program (CHRP) "Watershed-Estuary-Species Nutrient Susceptibility" (see project no. 05S00159 for a project description) and deals with watershed and nutrient load analysis. As participants in this project, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) investigators working with the National Water Quality Assessment (NWQA) program have responsibility for refinement and application of the SPAtially Referenced Regressions on Watershed (SPARROW) attributes watershed models. USGS will modify the SPARROW water quality models for the purpose of supporting CHRP project objectives of assessing the environmental and economic effectsof land-use, nutrient management, and climate on nutrient loading to estuaries. Activities in years one and two primarily include the compilation and processing of watershed data to support the development of the new SPARROW water-quality models. Work was begun in year one on compiling watershed data for the SPARROW model spanning the period of the 1970s to 2002. USGS conducted an initial review of the currently available historical data on climate, population, contaminant sources, land use, and stream water-quality measurements for coastal drainages of the Atlantic and Gulf regions. This included an assessment of the available data that describe various agricultural nutrient inputs and farm practices. USGS completed identification of suitable datasets, and have begun to compile and process selected portions of the data for the indicated years according to the SPARROW modeling infrastructure, based on 1-km spatial grids of the United States. USGS also worked with project collaborators on initial comparisons of the nutrient flux predictions from the existing SPARROW and SCOPE/NANI models for selected Atlantic coastal drainages. Work was also begun on developing the mathematical specification of the temporally based SPARROW models that are to be used to assess land-use and climate change in the project.

Expected Outcome:
SPARROW model applications will include the development of detailed watershed and stream monitoring databases for the Atlantic and Gulf watersheds at a temporal resolution needed to assess the effects of climate change and land use on nutrient delivery to selected estuaries in these regions. The watershed models will be used in an economic analysis of policy and management scenarios that relate potential load targets (i.e., sources and inland watersheds) to the costs necessary to implement the management strategy. Morever, the model predictions of riverine flux will serve as input to trophic-response models of estuarine conditions(developed as part of the broader project goals) to support evaluations of the ecological impacts of changing land use and climate.