Recently, we announced the open call for presentations for the 2018 Iowa Water Conference. (There’s still time to submit your abstract – the deadline is September 4 at 11:59 p.m.!) We have had some great submissions thus far, and look forward to reviewing them with the Iowa Water Conference planning committee.
However, it occurred to us last week through some conversations at the Prairie Lakes Conference in Okoboji, IA that there may be a swath of good presentation suggestions sitting out there from people who wouldn’t want to volunteer other people (or themselves) without an invitation. While we ask for suggestions in the post-event evaluation, we historically have not actively solicited suggestions for speakers the rest of the year.
To solve this dilemma, we are introducing a new webform on the conference page on our website. Here, you can make suggestions of topics or speakers you’d like to see covered at the upcoming Iowa Water Conference. Keep in mind this is prime agenda developing season – we typically fill up the agenda by November 1 – so while we accept suggestions year-round, anything after the agenda is full will be considered for the following year.
Of course, you’re always welcome to chat with us as you see us out and about, or shoot an email directly to hbates@iastate.edu. Happy suggesting!
Success in water-related work, whether it is out in the farm field, a backyard, or in city infrastructure, cannot be achieved alone. It is done by a community and for a community. With that in mind, the Iowa Water Conference Planning Committee is happy to announce the theme for the 2018 Iowa Water Conference: “Our Watershed, Our Community.” This theme was inspired by the large, complex network of water-related professionals in Iowa that support local watershed work.
We invite water professionals, researchers, and graduate students to submit presentation abstracts centered around the theme of community in water. Through these presentations, applications should share success stories, challenges, and research that supports a foundation of community at the watershed-level.
The call for presentations, including instructions for submission, can be found here. Questions can be directed to Hanna Bates at hbates@iastate.edu. We look forward to learning about your watershed experience!
The Iowa Water Center is pleased to unveil our new logo!
It’s been five years since the Iowa Water Center last redesigned the logo, and it’s amazing how things have changed in that time. New staff, new projects, and a reinvigorated commitment to enhanced water management across the state have better defined our focus as originally laid out in the federal Water Resources Research Act (WRRA) of 1964.
Through this legislation, we are tasked with conducting a statewide research program that supports four critical needs on a local level:
improvements in water supply reliability;
the exploration of new ideas that address water problems or expand understanding of water and water-related phenomena;
the entry of new research scientists, engineers, and technicians into water resources fields; and
the dissemination of research results to water managers and the public.
We are also called to “cooperate closelywith other colleges and universities in the State that have demonstrated capabilities for research, information dissemination, and graduate training in order to develop a statewide program designed to resolve State and regional water and related land problems.”
We don’t take these directives lightly. Through our conducted research, robust online presence, and role as a connector for collegiate and credible water-related agency and organization work, we strive to foster efficient, effective advances in water management for the state of Iowa. Every project we take on has to pass this test, so it is only fitting that our new logo symbolizes what we so highly value.
The water droplet, of course, is a familiar emblem for our industry. However, our water droplet takes subtle cues from an ear of corn to tie into Iowa’s agricultural roots. The four colors of the droplet represent those four critical needs defined in the WRRA. Additionally, these sections cross over and into each other, symbolizing the connective nature of our work. The font is a nod to our administrative home at Iowa State University.
We look forward to our stakeholders becoming familiar with the new look as we also look to improve our website so that it better reflects our Center. We’d also like to give a special thank you to Zao525 for their expertise, attention to detail, and guidance in this process.
Cultivating a Community of Practice for Watershed Management
Submitted by Melissa Miller, Associate Director of the Iowa Water Center
The word is starting to get out on one of our latest Iowa Water Center initiatives: Watershed Management Authorities of Iowa (WMAs of Iowa). This is a statewide organization to unite the ever-growing numbers of Watershed Management Authorities in the state. The goal of this group is to create a network for WMAs to connect with each other, give WMAs a voice in the state, and serve as an information resource for all watershed management stakeholders. WMAs of Iowa helps cultivate a community of practice for watershed management in Iowa.
Let’s be honest here – we did not come up with this great idea. The need for this group came from the WMA stakeholders themselves, and they are the ones who will drive it. Multiple work sessions this winter with the WMA community resulted in a strategic framework that needed one thing: implementation. IWC proposed to act as a catalyst for implementation by offering administrative capacity – organizing meetings, managing a timeline, maintaining a listserv, coordinating all the work that has already gone into creating a presence for this group.
Right now, we’re in the process of inviting WMAs to join us, and we’re looking for board members from those existing and newly forming WMAs to drive the organization forward. We hope to have a board in place by this fall with a website, newsletter, and other outreach and resource activities to follow.
Why is IWC involved?
Great question.
I’ve confessed before to being the president of the WMA fan club, and waxed poetic about the effectiveness of watershed-based planning. I’ve also been using the admittedly odd metaphor that IWC can act as caulk for water groups in the state – we seek to fill gaps and build capacity that connects groups to use resources effectively and efficiently.
By building up WMAs in the state, we’re promoting a research-backed method of natural resource management that will lead to better water resource management and implementation of creative and practical solutions to water resources related problems. That is the reason we exist, you know. (Need proof? Read the Water Resources Research Act as amended in 2006!)
This week, our Iowa Water Center Advisory Board held their bi-annual meeting at the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory at Lake Okoboji in northwestern Iowa. At this meeting, we reviewed the activities of the Iowa Water Center as well as future projects. Staff members and the advisory board also visited the research field sites for Elizabeth Swanner, Assistant Professor in the Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences at Iowa State University.
Post submitted by Hanna Bates, Program Assistant for the Iowa Water Center
The soil is like a sponge that holds water so it is available when crops need it. Wetter soil at the surface prevents deeper infiltration and so water is lost as surface runoff. Not only this, but soil moisture is also a variable that influences the timing and amount of precipitation in a given area. This is due to the impact it has on the water cycle. This cycle circulates moisture from the ground through evaporation and plant transpiration to the atmosphere and back to the ground again through precipitation. Therefore, the amount of water stored in the soil can affect the amount of precipitation received during the growing season.
Satellite imaging from the European Space Agency. The center figure depicts imaging derived from SMOS.
According to Hornbuckle (2014), “we enter each growing season ‘blind’ as to whether or not there will be enough soil moisture and precipitation to support productive crops.” If there were a way to document and record water storage in the soil besides field measurements, we would have a better ability to predict future weather patterns and therefore, make better field decisions. Satellite remote sensing tools such as the European Space Agency’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and NASA’s Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) can be used to take such measurements. Before these tools can be used to estimate water storage and improve weather and climate predictions, researchers must compare them to what is actually measured within the soil. This process of confirming accuracy of a tool is called validation.
A project led by Dr. Brian Hornbuckle, and funded by the Iowa Water Center in 2014, sought to improve and validate SMOS and SMAP in near-surface soil moisture observations of Iowa. Hornbuckle used a network of soil moisture measurements located in the South Fork Watershed as a standard to validate the accuracy of SMOS and SMAP. At each site, soil moisture and precipitation was measured.
Some of the results of this research project are presented in a 2015 article published in the Journal of Hydrometeorology. Rondinelli et al. found that SMOS and the network of soil moisture measurements detect different layers of the soil. SMOS takes measurements of the soil surface while the network observes a deeper level of soil. These results will allow scientists to better evaluate the accuracy of measurements from SMOS and SMAP and ultimately enhance our understanding of the water content of the soil surface. As noted earlier, it is this layer of the soil that determines how much precipitation is lost to surface runoff.
In a subsequent study published in 2016, Hornbuckle et al. published further results that indicate new ways of using SMOS. Researchers found that SMOS can be used to look at water in vegetation, as opposed to water in the soil. Hence SMOS might be used in the future to observe the growth and development of crops, and perhaps estimate yield and the time of harvest as opposed to conducting field surveys from the ground. It also has the potential to measure estimates of the biomass produced during the growing season, which could be useful to reach bioenergy production goals.
Research like this demonstrates that a single tool can be used in multiple ways to better understand our landscape. Not only this, but preliminary studies of SMOS also show that it is important to verify the accuracy of tools before relying on them. Like all research, the work is not done to identify all the potential uses for SMOS and SMAP. A new NASA grant, in partnership with the Iowa Flood Center, will help get researchers even closer to making satellite measurements a useful, scientific tool to understand water near the soil surface.
References
Hornbuckle, Brian K. “New Satellites for Soil Moisture: Good for Iowans!.” A Letter from the Soil & Water Conservation Club President (2014): 20.
Hornbuckle, Brian K. Jason C. Patton, Andy VanLoocke, Andrew E. Suyker, Matthew C. Roby, Victoria A. Walker, Eswar R Iyer, Daryl E. Herzmann, and Erik A. Endacott. 2016. SMOS optical thickness changes in response to the growth and development of crops, crop management, and weather. Remote Sensing Environment (180) 320-333.
Rondinelli, Wesley J., Brian K. Hornbuckle, Jason C. Patton, Michael H. Cosh, Victoria A. Walker, Benjamin D. Carr, Sally D. Logsdon. 2015. Different Rates of Soil Drying after Rainfall Are Observed by the SMOS Satellite and the South Fork in situ Soil Moisture Network. Journal of Hydrometeorology. April 2015.
Melissa Miller, Associate Director for the Iowa Water Center, was selected to join the 2017-2018 cohort of the Iowa State University’s Emerging Leaders Academy.
The Emerging Leaders Academy provides participants the opportunity to learn about and explore the different institutional best practices and research on leadership on the Iowa State University campus.
In honor of publishing the 2017 Spirit of the Water Essay Contest, the Iowa Water Center staff have decided to join in and answer the chosen essay prompt for the contest.
This year, the prompt was: Think of a body of water that you are familiar with and the different kinds of benefits that it provides to the surrounding area. Why are places like that worth protecting?
Mississippi River in Davenport, IA
Modern Woodmen Park in Davenport, IA
West Lake Park in Davenport, Iowa
Left Clockwise: Mississippi River in Davenport, IA; Modern Woodmen Park in Davenport, IA; and West Lake Park in Davenport, IA. Photos by Amy Zank.
Home by the Water
Story submitted by Melissa Miller, Associate Director for the Iowa Water Center
The night before I left my hometown for my freshman year of college, I told my parents I was going for one last drive around town. I toured the familiar streets of my neighborhood, cruised past the busy big box store corridor where I’d held a couple of part-time jobs, then made my way down to the riverfront to say goodbye to the Mighty Mississippi. Growing up in a river town, it’s no surprise that water shaped my childhood.
For the first ten years of my life, I lived on a dead-end street that backed up to a stream. We weren’t supposed to play in the creek, but with my parents at work, an older brother and sister, and a neighborhood full of kids our ages, I spent a lot of summer days in and around that water. It was shallow enough for a six year old to splash around without fear, but deep enough to examine peculiar aquatic creatures and concoct creative means for catching small fish. The rest of the year, Candlelight Creek guided me home from school each day.
My fond childhood memories of water don’t stop at the end of the creek. Even as a city kid, I knew how to bait a hook by the time I was in kindergarten. My grandpa would take us to West Lake Park out at the edge of town and we’d catch bluegill and crawdads all day long. We feared the day we would be old enough to need a fishing license and worried Grandpa wouldn’t want to take us anymore if it cost money.
I never fished in the Mississippi, but I’ve always been drawn to it for reasons I didn’t try to understand. We watched minor league baseball at John O’Donnell Stadium (now called Modern Woodman Park, but old habits die heard); listened to concerts at the bandshell in LeClaire Park; took prom pictures with the Centennial Bridge in the background; worshiped at sunrise service near the banks on Easter morning; cycled along its shores on the bike path; admired (okay, envied) the historic mansions on River Drive. Those are all things you can do just about anywhere – but the river just makes everything better.
There are lots of reasons to protect the Mississippi River, West Lake, and Candlelight Creek – commerce, transportation, recreation, habitat and ecosystem preservation, to name a few – but my reason for protecting the water is simple. Water is home.
Not too far from the farm where I live now runs the South Fork of the Iowa River. I hope my daughters know the joy of wading to a sand bar hoping to discover wildlife and the comfort of setting up camp on the banks to sit in the peace of their surroundings. I hope on the night before they leave their childhood home to set off on a new adventure, they tell me, “Mom, I’m going to the river.” In the meantime, I’ll do all I can to protect the water, our home.
The discussion of water research and policy at the Iowa Water Conference was far from dry. As a student who is very interested in the happenings of Iowa’s waterways, I found many aspects of the conference very informative.
Post submitted by Melissa Miller, Associate Director of the Iowa Water Center
At a recent Iowa Watershed Approach meeting, I introduced myself (half-jokingly) as the president of the Watershed Management Authority Fan Club. As evidenced by my post last fall after a trip to the Cedar River Watershed Coalition meeting, I am a strong supporter of a watershed approach to natural resource management. Naturally, Watershed Management Authorities (WMAs) are a recipient of my affection.
A brief overview for those not familiar with WMAs: Watershed Management Authorities are a state of Iowa-recognized mechanism for encouraging the collaboration of the different communities within a watershed and enacting watershed based planning, including adoption of conservation practices that mitigate flooding and improve water quality. WMAs were first introduced in Iowa in 2010 when Iowa code 466B was enacted. Major initiatives of this chapter include the formation of the Watershed Resources Coordinating Council (WRCC), Watershed Planning Action Committee (WPAC), the Water Quality Initiative (WQI), and WMAs. There are currently 17 WMAs in the state, with at least five more on deck for formation.
At a statewide WMA meeting on February 7, 2017, representatives from those WMAs gathered in Dubuque, Iowa to give updates and to talk strategy, successes, and collaboration. Mary Beth Stevenson with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) kicked off the afternoon with some fun facts about WMAs, including:
17 WMAs have received funding for planning or implementation through IDNR, Iowa Department of Ag and Land Stewardship, or the Iowa Watersheds Project or the Iowa Watershed Approach (two rounds of grant funding from the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development)
15 WMAs currently have funding at some level
10 WMAs are funded at a level with enough money for full-time staff and implementation
12 WMAs have or will have some level of paid staff, even if just part-time, funded locally and/or through grant funds
This is a promising start for WMAs as a successful vehicle for watershed management. Even more promising were the updates from the WMAs. Everyone had something to report from across the state. Indian Creek, one of the original six WMAs in 2012, is looking to hire a coordinator and completed an annual review that is turning into a strategic plan. Turkey River WMA, one of the “original HUD” projects succeeded in influencing policy in all participating political subdivisions (and achieved a 5% flood reduction in Otter Creek with the construction of 29 well-placed structures). In the Walnut Creek WMA a soil and water conservation district staff member found a lamprey (nearly extinct) in a CREP wetland. The Maquoketa River is also in the process of forming a WMA, not because they have outside funding, but simply because they have a group of interested citizens that recognize the benefits of working together.
These are just a few updates of many. My pen could hardly keep up and I couldn’t keep from asking questions. It is extremely energizing to be in a room full of people sharing ideas, concerns and solutions, and I wanted to learn all that I could. After the updates, Polk County WMA Coordinator John Swanson presented the unique activities happening in his part of the state (we will feature that presentation in its own post in the near future). We finished by breaking out into small groups to talk about how to keep WMA momentum going, establishing a WMA coordinator/staff position, watershed plan development and assessment, and how to structure a WMA collaborative group that communicates regularly to move all WMAs forward.
Citizen engagement is critical to the success of watershed management. I will leave you today with a challenge: find the WMA nearest you, even if you don’t live in that watershed, and attend a quarterly meeting. After you attend, you may just want to join my Watershed Management Authority Fan Club.
Melissa Miller, Associate Director for the Iowa Water Center, was selected to join the 2017-2018 cohort of the Iowa State University’s Emerging Leaders Academy.
