Prevalence of Concentrated Flow Paths in Agricultural Fields
in Southern Illinois
Prabisha Shrestha
&
Karl W. J. Williard
&
Jon E. Schoonover
&
Logan Park
Received: 7 December 2017 /Accepted: 15 May 2018
#
Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract Literature on prevalence of concentrated flow
paths (CPFs) in agricultural fields are limited at field
scale with only few studies that address occurrence of
CFPs at large geographic extent. This study used high-
resolution Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data to
identify CFPs in agricultural fields and calculate the
percentage of the fields drained by CFPs at a county
scale. In 389 agricultural fields across Jackson County,
southern Illinois, this study also investigated the associ-
ation between field characteristics and CFP formation
using multiple regression and CART analysis. The mean
number of CFPs in a field was 5 with a minimum of 0
and maximum of 17 CFPs. The majority of the CFPs fell
under the large category for CFP length and drainage area
that corresponds with high mean percent (81%) of field
area drained by the CFPs. Further, 85% of the fields had
more than 70% of their area drained by CFPs. The
multiple regression and CART analysis showed slope as
an important factor influencing CFP characteristics such
as number of CFPs and CFP length. Both analyses also
indicated physical soil properties such as bulk density,
soil erodibility factor, saturated hydraulic conductivity,
LS factor, organic matter, and percent sand were also
predictors of the CFP characteristics. However, these
factors explained only 2 to 12% of the variation ob-
served. The significant presence of CFP’shasimportant
implications for water quality since current conservation
practices such as riparian buffers were not designed to
address concentrated flow from agricultural fields.
Keywords Agricultural runoff
.
Concentrated flow
.
Data mining
.
Geospatial analysis
.
LiDAR
.
Non-point
source pollution
.
Nutrient and sediment
.
Remote
sensing
.
Watershed delineation
1 Introduction
Agricultural Non-point source (NPS) pollution has been
identified as one of the leading sources of water quality
impairments (Baker 1992). Transport of sediment and
nutrients by agricultural runoff has contributed to re-
duced soil productivity and poor water quality
Water Air Soil Pollut (2018) 229:198
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-018-3841-y
P. Shrestha (*)
Fort Leonard Wood, Center for Environmental Management of
Military Lands, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA
e-mail: prabisha.shrestha@gmail.com
K. W. J. Williard
:
J. E. Schoonover
:
L. Park
Department of Forestry, Southern Illinois University Carbondale,
Carbondale, IL, USA
K. W. J. Williard
e-mail: williard@siu.edu
J. E. Schoonover
e-mail: jschoon@siu.edu
L. Park
e-mail: logan.park@siu.edu
K. W. J. Williard
Universities Council on Water Resources, Carbondale, IL, USA
@Phil_Robichaud
@deepthiw
@JoseServera