Location: Sauk Centre, Minnesota
Client: Sauk River Watershed District
Background
In an effort to proactively identify potential best management practice (BMP) locations to improve water quality in Sauk Lake, the Sauk River Watershed District (SRWD) hired HEI to create a targeted implementation plan. The plan highlights the most effective practice locations within the Hoboken Creek Watershed.
The Project
To analyze the 26-square-mile watershed, HEI used the Prioritize, Target, and Measure Application (PTMApp)–Desktop application to develop geographic information systems (GIS) products that can be used to develop the targeted implementation plan.
One set of products—the hydroconditioned digital elevation models (hDEMs)—analyzes how water moves across a landscape.
The other set of products—PTMApp outputs—are derived from the hDEM inputs and contain water quality GIS data created with the application. This data includes estimated sediment, total phosphorous (TP), and total nitrogen (TN) annual loads and yields at the catchment scale.
Our team developed three targeted implementation scenarios to run in PTMApp–Desktop to estimate the benefits of individual BMPs. These included:
- Practices with the Largest Load Reductions
- Cost-Effective Practices
- Broader Practice Implementation
The data developed through this study can be continuously used into the future to devlelop numerous BMP and conservation practice (CP) implementation scenarios.
This analysis arms SRWD with concrete, targeted locations to build projects that will have the most effective outcome to improve watershed resources. The final report quantifies benefits and allows the District to combine key data with local knowledge to begin planning and implementing watershed projects.
HEI delivered an electronic catalog of all data produced under the contract, which will prove valuable to the District for future efforts.
Client Benefits
- Ownership of a complete data catolog with the comprehensive GIS data products created to protect SRWD’s fiscal investment.
- A targeted implementation plan with concrete statistics to help inform the most effective plan to build watershed projects.
- Various scenarios to fully understand the Hoboken Creek Watershed and consider the range of options available to provide water quality benefits.