1. Land Uses & Water Pollution Sources
Christopher Gale
Bill Taft
By Joan Schumaker Chadde, Western U.P. Center for Science, Mathematics and Environmental Education. All photos by Chadde, unless otherwise noted.

2. Overview What is a watershed?
What are the benefits of a healthy watershed?
What are land uses?
What types of pollution can come from different land uses?

3. What is a Watershed? (or Drainage Basin)
REVIEW!
What is a Watershed? (or Drainage Basin)
… the land area that drains runoff (rain or snow) into a lake, stream or river.
The boundaries of a watershed,
are hilltops and ridges.
Source: Doppelt, Bob, Mary Scurlock, Chris Frissell, and James Karr. (1993: xiv).  Entering the Watershed: A new approach to save America's River Ecosystems.  Washington, DC:  Island Press.  Copyright: Pacific Rivers Council.

4. How Does Your Watershed connect to the Great Lakes Watershed?
REVIEW!
How Does Your Watershed connect to the Great Lakes Watershed?
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

5. What watershed do you live in?

6. What are the Benefits of a Healthy Watershed
Clean water
Flood control
Good fish & wildlife habitat
Greater biodiversity
More productive for timber & grazing
Higher property values
More attractive

7. What are Land Uses? Grazing Farming Forestry (logging) Mining
Wildlife habitat
Recreation (motorized & non-motorized)
Residential
Commercial
Preservation (wild & scenic)

8. What are land uses?
The ways that people use the land.

9. What are Types of Pollutants?
Nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus)
Sediment (dirt)
Bacteria
Pesticides
Road salt
Toxic chemicals
Metals (mercury, copper, etc.)

10. Point and Non-point Sources of Water Pollution
Point = water pollutants discharged from a pipe into lakes and rivers.
Nonpoint = water pollutants carried by runoff over land and into lakes and rivers.

11. Point source pollution = water pollutants discharged from a pipe

12. Nonpoint Source Pollution = pollutants carried by water
as it runs off over the land. The type of pollutant (sediment, fertilizer, nutrients, pesticides, etc.) depends upon the type of land use.
Michigan Department of Environmental Quality

13. *Fill in your student sheet as you view the slides
Look at the following slides
*Fill in your student sheet as you view the slides
Identify the land use shown in the photo?
Identify what type of pollutants might result from the land use (shown in the photo) and possibly affect the water quality of a nearby stream?

14. #1

15. #2
Bill Taft

16. #3

17. #4 Dickinson Conservation District
Michigan Department of Environmental Quality

18. #5

19. #6

20. #7

21. #8
Michigan Department of Environmental Quality

22. Leading Sources of Water Quality Impairment to Rivers (MICHIGAN*)
Physical stream alterations (e.g. channelization or straightening)
Agriculture (crop runoff and animal feedlots)
Sediment
Industrial Point Source
Habitat modification (loss of streamside riparian vegetation)
Combined sewer overflows
Municipal Point Source
Construction
Leading pollutants:
organic compounds, pathogens, sediment, mercury, low dissolved oxygen, nutrients, metals (copper, chromium)
* 2004 Water Quality and Pollution Control in Michigan: Sections 303(d) and 305(b) Integrated Report, MI DEQ Water Division, page34.

23. Leading Sources of Water Quality Impairment to Rivers (U.S.*)
1. Agricultural runoff
(farming and livestock)
2. Municipal point sources
(sewage treatment plants)
3. Streamside habitat changes
(channelization, dredging, flow modifications)
Leading pollutants:
bacteria, nutrients, metals (primarily mercury), sediment
* 2000 National Water Quality Inventory (EPA report). Data received on 33% of U.S. waters were assessed for this report.

24. How can we reduce or prevent pollution ?
BEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES (BMPs)
…are designed to control, prevent, remove,
or reduce pollution. Three BMP categories:
1. Structural Practices
Grass or rock-lined drainage ditches.
Fence livestock away from stream
Sedimentation basin for parking lot runoff
2. Vegetative Practices
Cover crops
Leave tree and shrub “buffer strips” along streams
3. Management Practices
No till farming (don’t plow)
Rotate pastures used for livestock grazing
No grazing, logging, or building houses right next to a stream