Richard Lowrance

The Suwannee River is a National treasure with diverse wildlife, plants, land use, and hydrology. However, this major interstate basin has come under pressure from development, drought, and competing water uses. Decisions concerning management of interstate basins depend on high quality information on water, land, and human resources in the basins. Without dependable long-term information, stakeholders in the basins cannot make informed decisions about integrated resource management.

The 10,000 square mile Suwannee Basin begins in the Coastal Plain of Georgia near Cordele, flows through north Florida, and empties into the eastern Gulf of Mexico near Cedar Key, Florida and is the largest undammed drainage basin in the U.S. Coastal Plain. Basin-wide water resources planning will require a complete GIS-based system for all water withdrawals (agricultural, industrial, and municipal) and inputs (rainfall, runoff, return flow, and ground water recharge) to the basin. For future management of water quantity and quality concerns, a complete systems model of the basin will provide the most beneficial approach for determining the potential impact of conservation initiatives, proposed land use changes, and regulatory-based restrictions. A complete system, with representative economic impacts, will indicate the truly "feasible approaches" within the scientific-based alternatives.

Research Approach: There is a pressing need to provide a network of streamflow, groundwater, precipitation, water quality, and land use information for the entire basin, to make the data from Georgia and Florida compatible and accessible, and to conduct research to improve agricultural management practices so they take advantage of the processes controlling water quantity and quality in the basin. The USDA-ARS-SEWRL proposes to partner with UGA to provide this network and data management by building on our long-term research and monitoring in the Little River Watershed.

Specifically, we propose to:

1. install and maintain a network of rain gauges, wells and stream gauging devices to complement existing ARS, UGA, USGS, and SRWMD programs;
2. collect and analyze water samples for chemical and biological water quality in the Georgia portion of the basin;
3. develop and maintain an integrated data resource on water quantity and quality;
4. develop and maintain detailed spatially referenced data concerning land use, water resource status, and other physical, biological, and cultural features of the basin;
5. use the watershed scale data to guide new and ongoing agricultural management research in Georgia and Florida;
6. use the data in support of simulation modeling of basin and sub-basin water and land resources.

Expected Benefits: Stakeholders in the basin will benefit from having compatible data sets and models, from the development of improved farming practices and land use planning tools, and from the cooperation among agencies and political institutions to develop the information that will be the basis of long-term working relationships. The states and management agencies within the states will benefit by having a common, integrated data resource on water quantity and quality, land use, and decision support models that draw upon the data resource. Scientific organizations, including ARS, land grant institutions, and other public and private research/education partners will benefit by having new tools to analyze integrated natural resource issues within the basin. Federal, state, regional, city, county, and private agencies will have a way to evaluate existing conservation and management programs and to propose new ones.