Location: Stevens County, Minnesota
Client: Pomme de Terre River Association
Background
In 2015, the Pomme de Terre River Association (PDTRA) began the process of applying for a Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR) Accelerated Implementation Grant (AIG). Because of Houston Engineering, Inc.’s (HEI) background in developing the Prioritize, Target, and Measure Application (PTMApp), PDTRA reached out to to use the application to develop a targeted conservation practice implementation plan.
Development of the plan is ongoing. When completed the plan will identify the number and potential locations of agricultural management and structural conservation practices. These are determined by their feasibility based on technical criteria and benefits. The project is expected to be incorporated in a future One Watershed, One Plan effort for the entire Pomme de Terre Watershed (about 875 square miles). The project provides PDTRA with a strong framework to make important resource management decisions.
The Project
The project began with a kick-off meeting between HEI and PDTRA to introduce team members, summarize project goals and tasks, consolidate resources, plan the implementation plan approach, and schedule completion.
HEI then gathered the necessary data needed to understand and describe the project area as well as to hydrologically condition the digital elevation model (DEM) and create input layers needed to execute PTMApp and develop PTMApp products. This information includes:
- High-resolution aerial imagery
- High-resolution topohraphic data
- Hydrography
- Soils information
- Land use
With the necessary data in hand, HEI completed the hydrologic conditioning of the DEM to account for any surface features in order to properly represent the movement of surface water.
Once the necessary data and model results were gathered, HEI used PTMApp to create a standard set of products. Not only can these products be used to create the targeted conservation practice implementation plan, but they will also be used to estimate the sediment, total phosphorous (TP), and total nitrogen load reductions that will result from proposed best management practices (BMPs) also developed by PTMApp.
HEI will combine the targeted implementation plan, PTMApp data and products, and modeling results in a written report to present to PDTRA.
Client Benefits
- A new targeted implementation plan for Pomme de Terre to utilize during the One Watershed, One Plan process.
- Asistance running PTMApp and generating accurate products.
- Proposed locations for future BMPs.