2023 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference
March 5-7, 2023 • Cincinnati, OH
5/25/2021 | 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | MISSED OPPORTUNITIES: DECOUPLING OF WETLANDS FROM NUTRIENT SOURCE AREAS LIMITS DENITRIFICATION POTENTIAL IN THE UNITED STATES | Virtual Platform
MISSED OPPORTUNITIES: DECOUPLING OF WETLANDS FROM NUTRIENT SOURCE AREAS LIMITS DENITRIFICATION POTENTIAL IN THE UNITED STATES
Growing populations and agricultural intensification have led to elevated riverine nitrogen (N) loads, coastal hypoxia and occurrences of algal blooms. Although recent work has suggested that wetlands are critical ecosystems that can protect downstream waters and improve water quality by intercepting N loads, restoration and protection of wetlands are often conducted in an ad-hoc manner, with a focus on maximizing total restored area rather than other spatial attributes of the wetland network. Here, we use National Wetland Inventory data and 5km2 estimates of N inputs and outputs across the entire contiguous US to demonstrate that current N removal by US wetlands (~860 kilotonnes N/year) is severely limited by a spatial disconnect between high-density wetland areas and N hotspots. We further show that additional restoration efforts of 10% wetland area using a spatially targeted approach across the US can double current wetland N removal. This increased removal would provide an estimated 54% decrease in N loading to the Mississippi River network. Our results suggest that wetland protection and restoration policies need to reduce the spatial disconnect between N sources and wetlands to have significant improvements to downstream water quality.
- Restoration
- Landscape
- Nutrient cycling
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Presenters/Authors
Frederick Cheng
(), University of Waterloo, frederick.cheng@uwaterloo.ca;
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Kimberly Van Meter
(), University of Illinois at Chicago, kvanmete@uic.edu;
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Danyka Byrnes
(), University of Waterloo, danyka.byrnes@uwaterloo.ca;
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Nandita Basu
(), University of Waterloo, nandita.basu@uwaterloo.ca;
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