Sheila Christopher
Contact:
Dr. Sheila F. Christopher
Research Assistant Professor
University of Notre Dame
Environmental Change Initiative
1400 East Angela Blvd
South Bend, IN 46617
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 574-217-0155
Dr. Sheila F. Christopher
Research Assistant Professor
University of Notre Dame
Environmental Change Initiative
1400 East Angela Blvd
South Bend, IN 46617
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 574-217-0155
Twitter: @puffchristopher
Research Interests:
Current Projects:
1. Title: Linking improved soil health to water quality via the planting of cover crops in the Shatto Ditch Watershed, Kosciusko Co, IN.
Problem Statement: Agricultural watersheds in the Midwestern US underwent extensive change when artificial tile drainage systems and increased availability of synthetic fertilizers became ubiquitous in the early 1900s. These changes have had enormous positive impacts on the agricultural economy and the expansion of agricultural exports. However, intensive cropland activity contributes to soil quality degradation and excess runoff of nutrients from agriculture fields that result in water quality problems including contaminated drinking water, algal blooms, and associated periods of hypoxia in receiving waters.
Potential Solution: Conservation practices, like the planting of cover crops, improve soil health while reducing nutrient and sediment export from agricultural fields. Specifically, cover crops, planted after cash crop harvest, reduce soil erosion, decrease soil compaction, increase soil organic matter, and suppress weed growth. Increased uptake by cover crops of residual soil nitrogen and phosphorus during the winter and spring, when fields are normally bare, also significantly reduces nutrient concentrations in the soil leaving fewer nutrients available for leaching to streams.
Goal: The overarching goal is to help producers and landowners implement watershed scale conservation practices that improve soil health and maintain productive and profitable agriculture operations while reducing nutrient leaching from agricultural fields. Our specific objective is to demonstrate that the large-scale implementation of winter cover crops in two Indiana watersheds can effectively improve soil health and function in agricultural landscapes.
Sponsor: Indiana Water Resources Research Center
Principal Investigators: Jennifer Tank and Sheila Christopher
- Watershed Hydrology, and Biogeochemistry
- Soil Biogeochemistry
- Linkages between terrestrial soil nutient cycling, hydrologic nutient transport through watersheds, and stream chemistry
- Climate and land use change effects on biogeochemical and hydrological processes
- Effects of conservation practices on soil and water quality
- Hydrologic Modeling
Current Projects:
1. Title: Linking improved soil health to water quality via the planting of cover crops in the Shatto Ditch Watershed, Kosciusko Co, IN.
Problem Statement: Agricultural watersheds in the Midwestern US underwent extensive change when artificial tile drainage systems and increased availability of synthetic fertilizers became ubiquitous in the early 1900s. These changes have had enormous positive impacts on the agricultural economy and the expansion of agricultural exports. However, intensive cropland activity contributes to soil quality degradation and excess runoff of nutrients from agriculture fields that result in water quality problems including contaminated drinking water, algal blooms, and associated periods of hypoxia in receiving waters.
Potential Solution: Conservation practices, like the planting of cover crops, improve soil health while reducing nutrient and sediment export from agricultural fields. Specifically, cover crops, planted after cash crop harvest, reduce soil erosion, decrease soil compaction, increase soil organic matter, and suppress weed growth. Increased uptake by cover crops of residual soil nitrogen and phosphorus during the winter and spring, when fields are normally bare, also significantly reduces nutrient concentrations in the soil leaving fewer nutrients available for leaching to streams.
Goal: The overarching goal is to help producers and landowners implement watershed scale conservation practices that improve soil health and maintain productive and profitable agriculture operations while reducing nutrient leaching from agricultural fields. Our specific objective is to demonstrate that the large-scale implementation of winter cover crops in two Indiana watersheds can effectively improve soil health and function in agricultural landscapes.
Sponsor: Indiana Water Resources Research Center
Principal Investigators: Jennifer Tank and Sheila Christopher
2. Title: Preventing nutrient loss from Indiana farms: watershed-scale pairing of cover crops and the two-stage ditch.
Problem Statement: During the past 150 years, the Midwestern US has undergone extensive land use change as vast wetlands and prairies have been converted to productive cropland. While these croplands have played a crucial role in feeding the country and the world, nutrient runoff from these fields has also significantly impaired adjacent stream water quality, threatened habitats of at risk aquatic species and jeopardized downstream habitats. Non-point sources of excess nutrients to Lake Erie and the Gulf of Mexico have also been linked to algal blooms and subsequent widespread hypoxia causing ecological and economic problems.
Potential Solution:
- Pairing large-scale implementation of winter cover crops and two-stage ditch offers a potential management strategy to reduce nutrient leaching from fields to tile drains to streams.
- The two-stage ditch is an in-stream practice that transforms conventionally-managed, trapezoidal ditches into stable systems by constructing “mini” floodplains within the stream. These floodplains improve bank stability while reducing sediment and nutrient export.
Goal Statement: The overarching goal is to help producers and landowners implement watershed scale conservation practices that reduce nutrient runoff while maintaining productive and profitable agriculture operations. Our specific objective is to demonstrate that the large-scale implementation of “stacked” best management practices like the two-stage ditch and winter cover crops in two Indiana watersheds can effectively improve soil and water quality in agricultural landscapes.
Sponsor: United States Department of Agriculture-Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP)
Principal Investigators: Jennifer Tank, Sheila Christopher, Todd Royer (Indiana University),
Problem Statement: During the past 150 years, the Midwestern US has undergone extensive land use change as vast wetlands and prairies have been converted to productive cropland. While these croplands have played a crucial role in feeding the country and the world, nutrient runoff from these fields has also significantly impaired adjacent stream water quality, threatened habitats of at risk aquatic species and jeopardized downstream habitats. Non-point sources of excess nutrients to Lake Erie and the Gulf of Mexico have also been linked to algal blooms and subsequent widespread hypoxia causing ecological and economic problems.
Potential Solution:
- Pairing large-scale implementation of winter cover crops and two-stage ditch offers a potential management strategy to reduce nutrient leaching from fields to tile drains to streams.
- The two-stage ditch is an in-stream practice that transforms conventionally-managed, trapezoidal ditches into stable systems by constructing “mini” floodplains within the stream. These floodplains improve bank stability while reducing sediment and nutrient export.
Goal Statement: The overarching goal is to help producers and landowners implement watershed scale conservation practices that reduce nutrient runoff while maintaining productive and profitable agriculture operations. Our specific objective is to demonstrate that the large-scale implementation of “stacked” best management practices like the two-stage ditch and winter cover crops in two Indiana watersheds can effectively improve soil and water quality in agricultural landscapes.
Sponsor: United States Department of Agriculture-Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP)
Principal Investigators: Jennifer Tank, Sheila Christopher, Todd Royer (Indiana University),
3. Title: Watershed-scale assessment of stacked drainage practices in the Western Lake Erie Basin to improve water quality
Problem Statement: The Western Lake Erie Basin (WLEB) is intensively farmed and the region is dependent upon managed drainage practices, e.g., tile drainage, channelization, to ensure productive agriculture. However, these drainage practices also facilitate the delivery of excess nutrients and sediments to Lake Erie, which have been linked to recurring algal blooms, subsequent hypoxia and associated ecological problems.
Potential Solution: This project focuses on two relatively new best management practices (BMPs), the two‐stage ditch and tile drain management. When used in tandem, these two BMPs provide great promise for improving water quality, but their efficacy has been tested only using field‐ and reach‐scale implementation.
Goal: This project is evaluating the effectiveness of the two‐stage ditch coupled with field‐scale tile drain management in improving water quality in the WLEB using the Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model. We are parameterizing the model, evaluating multiple management scenarios and incorporating the practice input parameters into the SWAT modeling guidebook.
Sponsor: The University of Michigan Water Center
Principal Investigators: Sheila Christopher, Jennifer Tank, Scott Sowa (The Nature Conservancy)
Website
Problem Statement: The Western Lake Erie Basin (WLEB) is intensively farmed and the region is dependent upon managed drainage practices, e.g., tile drainage, channelization, to ensure productive agriculture. However, these drainage practices also facilitate the delivery of excess nutrients and sediments to Lake Erie, which have been linked to recurring algal blooms, subsequent hypoxia and associated ecological problems.
Potential Solution: This project focuses on two relatively new best management practices (BMPs), the two‐stage ditch and tile drain management. When used in tandem, these two BMPs provide great promise for improving water quality, but their efficacy has been tested only using field‐ and reach‐scale implementation.
Goal: This project is evaluating the effectiveness of the two‐stage ditch coupled with field‐scale tile drain management in improving water quality in the WLEB using the Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model. We are parameterizing the model, evaluating multiple management scenarios and incorporating the practice input parameters into the SWAT modeling guidebook.
Sponsor: The University of Michigan Water Center
Principal Investigators: Sheila Christopher, Jennifer Tank, Scott Sowa (The Nature Conservancy)
Website