96717601

**Description:** The agreement provides funding to Kansas Water Office.

Specifically, the recipient will quantify the capacity of farm pond wetlands in northeastern Kansas to improve water quality, store water or provide habitat and identify predictive geospatial features that would allow us to quickly inventory existing farm pond wetlands and make recommendations for management.

The project uses a combination of monitoring and repeat field assessments to measure water chemistry, discharge, and change in storage after moderate to large precipitation events and habitat condition (vegetation and macroinvertebrates) for 10 farm pond wetlands.

The project will investigate changing stressors (crop conversion, livestock use) and geospatial attributes of a larger suite of farm pond wetlands using geospatial analysis.

This work will result in better understanding of the current trajectory of farm pond wetlands in the watershed and identify characteristics indicative of current best function.

This knowledge can guide conservation actions toward riparian management, farm pond retirement, restoration or conversion.

**Activities:** The activities include:

Goal 1. Assess changes in wetland geospatial attributes over the past 10 years and update the GIS wetland conversion suitability index to utilize actual cropping history data.

Goal 2. Quantify farm pond nutrient retention and hydrology during large precipitation events.

Goal 3. Determine presence and abundance of wetland vegetation and macroinvertebrates and assess coverage and functional characteristics.

Goal 4. Combined statistical analysis of geospatial and in situ datasets.

Goal 5. Project administration (QAPP, quarterly reports, final report).

Goal 6. Project coordination and adaptive management (meet with EPA, project partners, attend local conferences, make data publicly available).

**Subrecipient:** The subaward involves the following tasks:

Assemble the most up-to-date GIS data for the Delaware River watershed study area in northeastern Kansas.

This includes LiDAR elevation, annual USDA cropland data layer (CDL) coverages for 2006-2023, and the USGS National Hydrography Dataset (NHD).

Using these updated GIS data, identify Phase 2 study pond candidates and calculate the GWCI developed during the Phase 1 project to assist with site prioritization and selection.

Using the updated GIS data, extract watershed cropping history for a sub-population of farm ponds in the study area included in the NHD that are 0.4-2 hectares (1-5 acres) in size.

Develop an enhanced need index (Huggins et al. 2017) utilizing these cropping history data that can be combined with updated opportunity index values to create an enhanced GWCI.

Apply the new GWCI method to the entire farm pond sub-population.

Survey macroinvertebrates at each pond and compile data into a database.

**Outcomes:** The anticipated deliverables include an expanded wetland conversion index (GWCI) that includes new nutrient and hydrological results and analysis of land use change with previous wetland attributes to recommend future management, maps depicting farm pond wetlands and the spatial distribution of GWCI for Delaware River watershed, a report and publicly available datasets describing ambient conditions in study sites, and site-specific compilation of data, analysis and maps for participating landowners.

The expected outcomes include increased understanding by stakeholder organizations and landowners of farm pond wetland current hydrological, ecological condition, increased understanding by stakeholder organizations and landowners of farm pond wetland change in condition over the past decade due to crop conversion, increased understanding of farm pond wetland water quality, water storage and habitat response to high precipitation conditions which may inform future climate adaptation, improved data for the region detailing farm pond wetland storage and biological shifts over the past decade, both of which could be used to model future hydrological, water.

Kansas Water Office

1 - TACKLE THE CLIMATE CRISIS 1.1 - REDUCE EMISSIONS THAT CAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE 2 - TAKE DECISIVE ACTION TO ADVANCE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND CIVIL RIGHTS 2.2 - EMBED ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND CIVIL RIGHTS INTO EPA’S PROGRAMS, POLICIES, AND ACTIVITIES 6 - SAFEGUARD AND REVITALIZE COMMUNITIES 6.1 - CLEAN UP AND RESTORE LAND FOR PRODUCTIVE USES AND HEALTHY COMMUNITIES 6 - SAFEGUARD AND REVITALIZE COMMUNITIES 6.2 - REDUCE WASTE AND PREVENT ENVIRONMENTAL CONTAMINATION 3 - GREATER CERTAINTY, COMPLIANCE, AND EFFECTIVENESS 3.3 - PRIORITIZE ROBUST SCIENCE 2 - TAKE DECISIVE ACTION TO ADVANCE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND CIVIL RIGHTS 2.1 - PROMOTE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND CIVIL RIGHTS AT THE FEDERAL, TRIBAL, STATE, AND LOCAL LEVELS 1 - TACKLE THE CLIMATE CRISIS 1.1 - REDUCE EMISSIONS THAT CAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE 1 - TACKLE THE CLIMATE CRISIS 1.1 - REDUCE EMISSIONS THAT CAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE 1 - A CLEANER, HEALTHIER ENVIRONMENT 1.4 - ENSURE SAFETY OF CHEMICALS IN THE MARKETPLACE 2 - MORE EFFECTIVE PARTNERSHIPS 2.2 - INCREASE TRANSPARENCY AND PUBLIC PARTICIPATION 3 - GREATER CERTAINTY, COMPLIANCE, AND EFFECTIVENESS 3.2 - CREATE CONSISTENCY AND CERTAINTY 3.5 - IMPROVE EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS S - CROSS AGENCY STRATEGY S.1 - ENSURE SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY AND SCIENCE-BASED DECISION MAKING 1 - A CLEANER, HEALTHIER ENVIRONMENT 1.3 - REVITALIZE LAND AND PREVENT CONTAMINATION 2 - TAKE DECISIVE ACTION TO ADVANCE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND CIVIL RIGHTS 2.1 - PROMOTE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND CIVIL RIGHTS AT THE FEDERAL, TRIBAL, STATE, AND LOCAL LEVELS 1 - TACKLE THE CLIMATE CRISIS 1.1 - REDUCE EMISSIONS THAT CAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE 5 - ENSURE CLEAN AND SAFE WATER FOR ALL COMMUNITIES 5.1 - ENSURE SAFE DRINKING WATER AND RELIABLE WATER INFRASTRUCTURE 2 - TAKE DECISIVE ACTION TO ADVANCE ENVIRON

66.461 - Regional Wetland Program Development Grants

EPA Region 7: Kansas City [EPA - RO]

Jackson, Kansas United States

County-Wide

Region 7 Fiscal Year 23-24 Wetland Program Development Grants (EPA-REG7-WPDG-23-01)