The project will establish a pilot watershed in the larger Western Lake Erie Basin to test water quality management strategies with the goal of reducing phosphorus concentrations in local water bodies. The project will improve water quality monitoring infrastructure and incentivize an increase in conservation acres from 30 to 70% through an “agglomeration bonus” that increases payments per acre as more acres are enrolled, and increases the funds available for a chosen community benefit as more producers enroll.
The general approach is to recruit farmers in the selected treatment watershed and to compare behavioral, social and environmental outcomes over time in this watershed to a selected control watershed. The Shallow Run and Potato Run watersheds have been selected by the study partners due to the long-term measures of water quality being collected in those locations and the ability to assess how water quality may shift over time as acres in conservation increase. Our team will also be working to understand what leads to sustained adoption of conservation practices on private lands, and how farmers can be encouraged to work together to solve collective problems like nutrient loss contributing to water quality challenges. Our interventions focus on research from behavioral science, which shows the importance of: (1) appealing to one’s legacy to motivate a focus on longer timescales while providing more local and near-term feedback on success, and (2) encouraging cooperation through shared identities/goals and dynamic social norms.
Funded by the USDA Regional Conservation Partnership Program in partnership with state and local funders