Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
=269.88) than in native prairie (=15.74) and CRP (=3.81) (Gleason 1996). Other investigators also have documented accelerated sedimentation of wetlands in agricultural landscapes. Adomaitis et al. (1967) demonstrated that the aeolian mixture of snow and soil ("snirt") in wetlands surrounded by cultivated fields accumulated at twice the rate as in wetlands in vegetated fields. Similarly, Martin and Hartman (1987) and Dryer et al. (1996) found that prairie wetlands with cultivated watersheds accrued sediments at twice the rate of wetlands surrounded by grassland, and Dieter (1991) demonstrated that turbidity in tilled wetlands was significantly higher than in partially tilled (wetlands with a filterstrip of vegetation along their periphery) and non-tilled wetlands. Catastrophic sedimentation events also have been observed in the PPR in which wetlands have completely filled with sediment during a single episodic rainfall event (Gleason and Euliss, personal observations). Wetlands in cultivated fields are thus shorter lived than wetlands in grasslands landscapes and significant soil loss occurs in agricultural lands under conventional tillage practices.
U.S. Department of the Interior |
U.S. Geological Survey
URL: http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/wetlands/pprwtlnd/soil.htm
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