Iowa Water Issues

Jim Gulliford, Executive Director

Soil and Water Conservation Society
Soil and Water Conservation Society

• Private, non-profit professional society

• 5000 members - scientists, educators, 

practitioners, farmers, ranchers

• Advocate for sustainable soil, water, 

natural resource management

• Private, working lands
Population

• Current Population – 310 million

• Projected 2050 Population – 438 million*

– 41% increase over next 40 years

* Pew Research Center, 2/11/2008
Population

• Current US Population – 310 million

• Projected 2050 Population – 438 million*

– 41% increase over next 40 years

• Need for our nation’s private working lands 

to provide food, fiber, forage, and fuel for 

the US and world’s population

* Pew Research Center, 2/11/2008
International Commitment

• 2000 United Nations General Assembly

– to halve the world’s undernourished and 

impoverished population by 2015

• Virtually no progress*

* UN Millennium Goals, 4 August 2007
Addressing Projected Food Demand

• Bring more lands into production

• Produce more from current land in 

production - increase productivity

• Import more food into the country
2010 CEAP* Release

• Conservation Practices on Cultivated Cropland

• 32 million acres of corn

– 40% corn grain harvested nationally

• 19 million acres of soybeans

• 15% cropland acres have excessive erosion

• 25% cropland acres are losing soil carbon

• 62% cropland acres require additional nutrient 

management to reduce nitrogen and/or phosphorus 

loss from fields

• 5% tile drained lands protected from Nitrate N loss

* NRCS Conservation Effects Assessment Program, Upper Mississippi 

River Basin - June, 2010
Challenge

• Meeting the food, fiber, forage and fuel 

needs in the United States

• Sustaining and improving the productive 

capability of the nation’s farm and ranch 

lands

• Protecting and improving environmental 

quality 
Challenge

• Meeting the food, fiber, forage and fuel needs in 

the United States

• Sustaining and improving the productive 

capability of the nation’s farm and ranch lands

• Protecting and improving environmental quality 

Scientific challenge,

Grossly underestimated
Non-solutions

• Bringing more lands (non-Ag lands, 

marginal Ag-lands) into food and 

commodity production

• Continuing current Ag production activities 

that have non-sustainable, adverse 

environmental impacts 
Solution Model

• Advance science that makes our most 

productive lands, more productive and

environmentally sustainable

– Improve crop, input, soil and water 

management systems

– Improve nutrient management (N, P) to 

optimize production and reduce nutrient loss

– Intercept and address nutrients lost through 

drainage and runoff

– Market ecosystem services from Ag lands
Technologies and Initiatives

• Iowa denitrification wetlands

• Iowa drainage and wetlands landscape 

initiative

• Iowa Statewide Nutrient Reduction 

Strategy

• USDA Upper Mississippi River Basin 

Initiative
Accountability

• Address drainage districts like watersheds

– Assure wetland functions and values are 

protected; fair mitigation 

– Install treatment wetlands to scrub nutrients 

that escape the Ag production system

– Improve nutrient management

– Enhance drainage to enhance Ag productivity

– Document drainage district environmental 

performance
Accountability

• Measure technology and program performance

– Document wildlife implications of wetland 

establishment, mitigation and management

– Address the question of denitrification wetlands 

becoming nutrient/pollutant sinks

– Address the question of drainage implications on 

landscape hydrology, flood routing

– Determine if precision nutrient management can be a 

more effective practice in landscapes with enhanced 

drainage performance 
Pothole 

Depression 

Typical of Farmed 

Wetland

May 2007

Same 

Pothole 

Depression 

June 2007
Kossuth County – 0.4 Acre Farmed Wetland with Crop Loss

Spring 2007
Targeted Wetland 

Restoration:

Iowa CREP Wetland



Conclusions

• Agriculture must address two of the most 

pressing world challenges – hunger and 

environmental protection – simultaneously

• Model must change – more of the same is 

not enough

• Change must be encouraged, 

accommodated and monitored – first in 

experiment and demonstration, then in 

program implementation
Conclusions

• Questions associated with proposed 

change must be addressed scientifically, 

and simultaneously

• Don’t let ‘perfect’ be the enemy of the 

‘good’ – make the ‘good’ better, through 

adaptive management processes 
Soil and Water Conservation Society

http://www.swcs.org

jim.gulliford@swcs.org