Institute of Water Research

Project Summary

Lake Erie, Michigan’s warmest and shallowest Great Lake, experiences chronic harmful algal blooms fueled primarily by excess phosphorus inputs. Agricultural sources of phosphorus pollution are the main impediment to achieving the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement’s 2025 40% reduction target for total phosphorus and dissolved reactive phosphorus.

Despite agreed upon benchmarks, Michigan currently lacks a comprehensive land and water quality monitoring strategy for Michigan’s Western Basin of Lake Erie. This inhibits the State’s ability to: accurately understand baseline pollutant loading; efficiently prioritize implementation of on-farm conservation practices; and quantify progress toward the binational 40% phosphorus reduction target. Given the scale of the remaining nonpoint source load entering Lake Erie it is critical to reliably track in-stream water quality changes to inform future projects, investments, and policies in the Western Lake Erie Basin.

This work complements ongoing efforts at state agencies to identify priority locations for conservation practices at a HUC12 watershed scale using the Agricultural Conservation Planning Framework. This monitoring work will bolster the State’s ability to prioritize subwatersheds for conservation and measure any resulting water quality improvements from the same.

Methods

Measuring statistically significant water quality improvements in Lake Erie and its tributaries will require an intensive monitoring program over next 10-20 years. The proposed project will lay the foundation to inform future monitoring priorities and investments while simultaneously bolstering our existing data resources. A long-term Western Lake Erie Basin monitoring strategy with satellite data, water quality measurements, and rain gage stations will work to close the monitoring gap in the Western Lake Erie Basin using the following approach.

1. In collaboration with the Michigan Department(s) of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD), Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE), and Natural Resources (DNR), the United States Geological Survey, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA), the Nature Conservancy (TNC), and Michigan Association of Conservation Districts (MACD), MSU will develop a conceptual monitoring strategy (“Strategy”) for Michigan’s Western Lake Erie Basin focused on achieving the 40% phosphorus reduction target. The plan will articulate the necessary location and scale of monitoring in the Western Lake Erie Basin and also reference past monitoring information. The plan will consider existing monitoring capacity at the state and federal level and then proceed to identify the additional locations and frequency of data collection necessary to achieve a representative picture of water quality at the HUC 8 and HUC 12 watershed scale.

2. In coordination with state and federal agency partners, we will bolster our in-stream monitoring capacity in the Basin with an additional two to four gaging stations. The monitoring strategy developed in year one will inform the exact locations, but we anticipate at least one additional station in the Saline River to assess the impact of planned conservation and another to help state, federal and university partners understand the difference in phosphorus water quality impacts between subwatersheds that use manure and commercial fertilizer application. The requested funding allows for data collection over a three-year period, however additional resources will be needed to continue this effort after conclusion of this project. Overall, the additional gaging stations will better capture data on the effects of select conservation practices in the Basin and more reliably quantify overall water quality in the Basin relative to the 40% Annex 4 reduction target.

3. IWR-MSU will purchase up to 10 rain gages and install them in watersheds associated with USGS gage stations. The locations of the rain gages will be determined during the development of the Strategy. These rain gages will help provide insights regarding storms and watershed responses to those storms. IWR-MSU will analyze rain gage data and share findings with the project partners and investigate any relationships between the storm events and water quality/discharge measurements.

4. Watershed data collected during the project will be regularly communicated to the public in a format to be determined during strategy development. Data will be shared annually, in a publicly accessible format, and that data for each year will be published within 3 months of data collection and analysis. One option may be to utilize existing USGS online platforms which are updated regularly with streamflow and water quality data. Additionally, the data collected by USGS is accessible as an application programming interface (API) which state agencies and other third-party entities could utilize to generate alternative reports.