Water Quality
The Buffalo National River was established as the first national river in 1972 as a free-flowing Extraordinary Resource Water and Natural and Scenic Waterway. In 2012, the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality approved the general permit of a 6,500-head swine concentrated animal feeding operation less than 10 km from the confluence of Big Creek and the Buffalo National River. Using standard EPA whole effluent toxicity testing, water samples were tested using organisms such as Ceriodaphnia dubia (Water Flea), Pimephales promelas (Fathead Minnow), and Lampsilis reeveiana (native Arkansas Broken-ray Mussel). This project supports the Buffalo National River’s long-term watershed management and the conservation of its resident mussel populations by identifying reaches most influential to the survival of these sensitive organisms.
Photo credit: Shawn Hodges, NPS
Edge of Field Monitoring
Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watersheds Initiative
The USDA-NRCS EQIP program has assisted farmers and landowners to integrate best management practices (BMPs) for improving soil and water conservation in their production systems. This project provides long-term evaluations of BMPs at the field scale that will help document changes in run-off water quality and quantity to help farmers improve resource management. Monitoring at the edge of fields paired with instream water quality analysis will aid our understanding of nutrient and sediment transport into small tributary streams and subsequent pollutant loading into the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico.
