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: difalcor@msu.edu

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”