Leopold Center helps launch new water quality web tool

LEOPOLD CENTER HELPS LAUNCH NEW WATER QUALITY WEB TOOL

AMES, Iowa -- The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture has helped develop a new web-based map and database designed to connect organizations throughout the Mississippi River watershed working on water quality.

RiverMap.org is an on-line database and interactive mapping system that highlights work by organizations and individuals to improve water quality and reduce practices that contribute to formation of the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

Every summer this area in the Gulf becomes void of life due to severely depleted levels of oxygen in the water, a state known as hypoxia. The condition kills every oxygen-dependent sea creature within its zone. In 2005, the Dead Zone was slightly smaller than the state of Connecticut. The Dead Zone is caused by excess nitrogen and phosphorus that is washed into the Gulf from the Mississippi River.

More than 40 organizations and government entities have contributed to RiverMap thus far, providing information on their efforts to address hypoxia. Organizations contribute by completing a survey on the web site, which catalogues the information into the database and makes it available on-line.

"The good news is that there are many organizations up and down the Mississippi River working on nutrient management and hypoxia. But with a 2,300-mile river and a basin that touches 31 states, it is difficult to measure the impact of these efforts, as well as coordinate information and work," said Jeri Neal, who leads the Leopold Center's Ecology Initiative and has been working on the RiverMap project.

The multi-state project began more than two years ago. Other partners are the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy based in Minneapolis; the Green Lands Blue Waters consortium that includes five state universities and 14 organizations; the Sustainability Institute of Vermont, and the Mississippi River Basin Alliance formerly based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Goals of the project are to:

Organizations involved in efforts to address hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico are encouraged to add their information to RiverMap by filling out the survey form at www.RiverMap.org.

The site has examples of farmers throughout the basin who have adopted best management, perennial cropping and other practices to improve water quality and watershed health. The project was supported by grants from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Bush Foundation and McKnight Foundation.