Field Research 101 2002-2003

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Field Research 1012002-2003 The effect of Land
use on nutrient levels
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Purpose to determine the effect of watershed
land use on phosphate and nitrate levels in
streams
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Setup I chose to monitor the nutrient levels of
two different sites along Beaver Creek, one
upriver and one downriver. By comparing the
nutrient levels and determining the difference in
land use between the two sites, I would be able
to find the effect land use had on the nutrient
levels.
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Nutrient Levels

• I took samples from two sites, one upstream (Farm
  site) and one downstream closer to Beaver Creek
  Reserve (Beaver Creek site).

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Then, using a Hoch 2010 Spectrophotomer and some
AccuVac Ampuls, I analyzed the water samples for
their Phosphate and Nitrate levels.
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I used Microsoft Excel to keep track of the data.
When all the data had been collected, I used
some data analysis tools found in Excel to do a
T-Test on my data to see if the two sites were
significantly different.
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The T-Test reported that the Phosphate levels at
the two sites were not significantly different.
However, it did find that the nitrate levels were
different.
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Determining Difference in Land Use
To determine the difference in land use between
the two sites, I took the following steps
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Using watershed and elevation data from the DNR,
I broke the Lower Eau Claire Watershed into
sub-watersheds and sub-sub-watersheds, with
boundaries dependant on sampling sites
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Next, I used ArcView to overlay a picture of
different land use types onto my newly created
watersheds
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Then, I roughly digitized the land uses by hand
using the land use data from the DNR as an
outline to find the land use of the smaller
watershed
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I repeated the process on the bigger watershed,
and used ArcView to calculate the total areas of
each of the land use types
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Once the areas were in Excel, I created a few
graphs to show the difference in land use.
Unfortunately, I wasnt able to discern a real
big difference in the land use between the two
sites
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Conclusions

• Because there wasnt a big enough difference in
  the land uses (as well as some of the nutrient
  levels themselves, my data does little to explain
  my purpose to find out the effect land use has
  on nutrient levels
• This shows that the Lower Eau Claire Watershed
  (or at least the part I studied) is fairly well
  protected- there arent inconsistencies

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Any Questions?