We can have it in two ways. We can protect our wells and have good agriculture in Florida. It will take a lot of science and behavioral change to do it.
A score of sixty million points is a good start. That’s what Matt Cohen, from the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, collected from sensors in the forest floor for four years to evaluate how different forest management methods – harvested more in until it doesn’t affect – it affects how much water flows from our wells.
What Cohen, a faculty member in the UF/IFAS School of Forestry, Fisheries and Geomatics Sciences, has demonstrated through his use of the latest technology and computing power is the path to well-being. He showed how we can use our working forests to improve water quality and quantity, not compromise it.
For well science to inform well protection, Cohen needs money, an ear and the involvement of partners.
He receives funding from state and federal agencies. He has water management districts and land conservation organizations interested in forest management as a resource protection tool. He consults with environmental organizations and forestry groups for insight that improves his research and implements his findings.
This collaborative model also applies to the springs research project funded by the United States Department of Agriculture. Led by Wendy Graham, a UF/IFAS professor who is director of the UF Water Center, the project analyzes trade-offs between land use, water quality and quantity, and economics.
Using the kind of data that Cohen collects, Graham’s team runs computer simulations to predict a range of outcomes between business as usual and the widespread adoption of methods aimed at reduce fertilizer loss and increase water recovery from farms and forests. In that grand middle ground, we hope to find a balance that protects wells and keeps farmers and foresters in business.
Conservation groups, farmers, foresters, the Florida Farm Bureau, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Suwannee River Water Management District and others are advising Graham’s team as it generates comparisons.
When we hit on something practical, how a farmer or rancher can reduce his environmental impact, we bring in economists to look at incentive programs to encourage the adoption of such new methods. We also have an Extension team that shows it to developers around the country.
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Meanwhile, we also work on the farm in time to protect the wells. Mark Clark of the UF/IFAS Department of Soil, Water, and Environmental Sciences has installed wells on a dairy farm in Gilchrist County to see if they can stop wastewater before it enters our watershed and wells. It’s a double win if the nutrient-rich groundwater can be used for crops, saving farmers money on fertilizer, while unused leachate is treated with a new method found in wetlands.
The participation of the private sector is key to this work. First, the dairy must open its gates to a wet environmentalist like Clark. A technology company, in this case Soil and Water Engineering Technology, makes its winning method available. And dairy farmers are taxed to help pay for the research.
The focus of Clark’s experiment is dairy, but what he learns can be broadly applied to other types of agriculture – so Graham’s developers need to take this and go big with it.
We have long known that agriculture brings more than food, feed, fat and fiber. For example, timber, cattle and agricultural activities often provide habitat for wildlife, sequester carbon and recharge aquifers to feed wells.
We don’t know how much. This is where UF’s artificial intelligence initiative helps. The existing AI collaboration between UF/IFAS and Alina Zare at the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering recently received $2 million from the Legislature to develop a system of drone-mounted hyperspectral sensors, images of satellite and other data collection devices. They will use UF’s AI supercomputer, HiPerGator, to accurately measure the environmental benefits of a given agricultural practice.
The work of Cohen, Graham, Clark and Zare in writing and discovering what is happening today must play an important role in deciding what it should be. A detailed picture of the costs and benefits of our land use options gives us a better chance of making the best decisions for our wells – and how we should share the costs of those options. those.
J. Scott Angle is UF’s senior associate professor of agriculture and natural resources and leader of UF/IFAS. This column is part of the Messages of the Day from the Springs Heartland series. Other parts of the series can be found at bit.ly/springsheartland.
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