Webinar: Not All Wetlands are Created Equal: Climate and Landscape Controls over Nutrient Reduction Potential of Wetlands in North Central US Croplands
Wednesday March 18th, 2026 at 12:00pm
Presenter: Owen McKenna, Research Ecologist, US Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
Register for Free: https://shorturl.at/lmf1m
This FREE webinar is part of SK PCAP’s annual Prairie’s Got the Goods Week. Everyone welcome! Watch from anywhere!
More Information: SK PCAP at 306.352.0472 or pcap@sasktel.net
Presentation Summary:
Billions of dollars have been invested in North America towards wetland conservation, restoration, and creation to enhance water quality both in croplands and adjacent downstream waters. Each wetland conservation action is implemented at a very local scale, mainly to conserve, restore, or create small (< 1 ha) waterbodies. There is still great uncertainty about the cumulative landscape-scale nutrient reduction benefits provided by wetlands in croplands and modeling tools are generally top-down estimations of water quantity and quality that are not spatially explicit at the field-scale.
In the US Prairie Pothole Region (USPPR; Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa), there are an estimated 2.6 million seasonally and temporarily inundated wetlands and 63% of those are embedded within or adjacent to croplands. We used Agricultural Policy/ Environmental Extender (APEX), a field-scale, process-based model to simulate nutrient, sediment, and surface water transport with and without wetlands in 900 standardized 16-ha fields using field management data from the Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP) and daily precipitation and temperature inputs. We found significant variation in nutrient and sediment reduction potential of wetlands across the US PPR that correlate to landscape and climate variables.
PCAP’s Prairie’s Got the Goods Week is an annual, week-long series of webinars focusing on the goods and services provided by the native prairie ecosystem.
Hosted by: Caitlin Mroz-Sailer, Stewardship Coordinator, Saskatchewan Prairie Conservation Action Plan