Premium
DETECTING REDUCTIONS IN SEDIMENT LOADS ASSOCIATED WITH OHIO'S CONSERVATION RESERVE ENHANCEMENT PROGRAM 1
Author(s) -
Richards R. Peter.,
Grabow Garry L.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
jawra journal of the american water resources association
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.957
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1752-1688
pISSN - 1093-474X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1752-1688.2003.tb03707.x
Subject(s) - climate change , environmental science , sediment , conservation reserve program , hydrology (agriculture) , water quality , sampling (signal processing) , ecology , geology , computer science , biology , geotechnical engineering , filter (signal processing) , computer vision , agriculture , paleontology
Small systematic changes in loads or concentrations of water quality constituents are difficult to detect against the background of short term fluctuations (“noise”) that result from weather and climate effects. Minimum Detectable Change Analysis (MDCA) uses prior knowledge of a water quality constituent to determine how much change must occur (e.g., from implementation of conservation practices) for the change to be statistically significant. In this paper we use MDCA to determine whether the goal of the Ohio Lake Erie Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP), to reduce sediment loads by an average of 6 percent over 10 years, represents a large enough change to be detected. We conclude that this amount of change is unlikely to be detected as statistically significant, even with the high frequency sampling program planned for evaluating it. The minimum detectable change ranges from about 7 to 9 percent for three different rivers.