Draining wetland ponds for agriculture expected to have large impacts on prairie water resources
Wetlands are well known as important features of the natural environment, owing to their ability to store water, contribute to good water quality, and provide valuable habitat for plants and animals, among other roles.
Nonetheless, various human activities lead to wetland degradation or loss.
In the prairie region of Canada, drainage of wetlands to increase agricultural productivity is a long-standing practice, and has resulted in the widespread loss of wetlands. While increased ability to produce food has benefits, this should be weighed against impacts that can result from wetland drainage, as these impacts have costs to society.
In order to consider trade-offs between costs and benefits of wetland drainage, estimates of the magnitude of potential impacts are needed at regional scales.
Read this open access paper on the FACETS website.
In this study, we quantify for the first time how agricultural wetland drainage can impact streamflow and nutrient export to downstream ecosystems, and how habitat and duck and bird communities can be expected to change with increasing wetland drainage.
We highlight increasing streamflow and nutrient export when as little as 10% of wetland pond area is lost. Importantly, habitat and duck and bird community responses are even more sensitive, with populations of some species expected to decrease by half with loss of as little as 20% of wetland pond area.
Through these impacts, wetland drainage in the region can be expected to contribute to increased flooding, degraded water quality, and reduced habitat availability and biodiversity, with impacts growing with the amount of drainage.
These results can be used in conjunction with economic assessments to design effective policy that both supports agriculture, and contributes to healthy water resources for the region’s human population.
Read the paper — An integrated assessment of impacts to ecosystem services associated with prairie pothole wetland drainage quantifying wide-ranging losses by Colin J. Whitfield, Emily Cavaliere, Helen M. Baulch, Robert G. Clark, Christopher Spence, Kevin R. Shook, Zhihua He, John W. Pomeroy, and Jared D. Wolfe
