Contact: Bob Ratliff
Determining how well current forest management practices protect water quality is the goal of a research project by scientists at Mississippi State's Forest and Wildlife Research Center.
Funded, in part, by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the university study is examining Best Management Practices-BMPs-used on intensively managed loblolly pine plantations to minimize the impacts of forest practices on water quality.
BMPs currently in use include the maintenance of 30-60 foot buffer zones between streams and areas where timber is being harvested, and the diversion away from streams of runoff water from harvested areas and access roads, said principal project investigator Stephen Schoenholtz.
"While BMPs have been used for about 10 years, there have been few scientific assessments to determine their effectiveness in protecting aquatic habitat and preventing non-point source pollution of steams," he said. "Outcomes of this project will enable forest managers to modify ineffective BMPs and to promote those meeting management goals."
Schoenholtz, a forest hydrologist in the MSU forestry department, and co-investigator Eric Dibble, an aquatic ecologist in the wildlife and fisheries department, are focusing their study on 15 streams in Calhoun, Choctaw and Webster counties.
All flowing through intensive-harvesting areas, streams in the three-year study are being monitored before, during, and after cutting to determine if changes occur in water quality, aquatic habitat and biological communities in the streams.
Specifically, the MSU scientists are examining temperature, oxygen and chemical contents, and other changes in water quality. Assessments also are being made of aquatic habitats and biological communities in the bodies of water.
Schoenholtz said monitoring fish and other aquatic life, as well as traditional measurements of water quality, are practical ways to determine BMP effectiveness.
"We are conducting stream habitat assessments and point sampling of water quality upstream adjacent to areas where timber has not been harvested and downstream from where timber has been harvested and BMPs have been implemented," he explained.
The research watersheds also will be used as demonstration areas for forestry workshops and for teaching laboratories in forest management and policy, forest hydrology, silviculture, and stream ecology.
"This project will provide a quantitative measure of the effectiveness of BMPs while identifying key BMP characteristics to be considered in future watershed management planning," Schoenholtz said.
In addition to the EPA, the BMP research is sponsored by Weyerhaeuser Corp., The Timber Co., MSU-based Mississippi Water Resources Research Institute, state Department of Environmental Quality, and National Council of the Paper Industry for Stream and Air Improvement.
For additional information, contact Schoenholtz at (662) 325-7481 or :sschoenholtz@cfr.msstate.edu.