Holistic Sustainability Assessment of Riparian Buffer Designs: Evaluation of Alternative Buffer Policy Scenarios Integrating Stream Water Quality and Costs.

Riparian buffer zones (RBZs) have been shown to be effective best management practices (BMPs) in controlling non-point source pollutants in waterbodies. However, the holistic sustainability assessment of individual RBZ designs is lacking. We present a methodology for evaluating the holistic sustainability of RBZ policy scenarios by integrating environmental and economic indicators simulated in three watersheds in the southeastern USA. We developed three unique sets of 40, 32, and 48 RBZ policy scenarios as decision management objectives (DMOs), respectively, in Back Creek, Sycamore Creek, and Greens Mill Run watersheds (Virginia and North Carolina) by combining the RBZ-widths with vegetation types (grass, urban, naturalized, wildlife, three-zone forest, and two-zone forest). We adapted the RBZ-hydrologic and water quality system assessment data of instream water quality parameters (dissolved oxygen, total phosphorus, total nitrogen, total suspended solids-sediment and biochemical oxygen demand) as environmental indicators, recently published by U.S. EPA. We calculated 20-year net present value costs as economic indicators using the RBZ's establishment, maintenance, and opportunity costs data published by the Natural Resources Conservation Service. The mean normalized net present value costs varied by DMOs ranging from 4% (grass RBZ-1.9 m) to 500% (wildlife RBZ-91.4 m) across all watersheds, due primarily to the width and the opportunity costs. The mean normalized environmental indicators varied by watersheds, with the largest change in total nitrogen due to urban RBZs in Back Creek (60-95%), Sycamore Creek (37-91%), and Greens Mill (52-93%). The holistic sustainability assessments revealed the least to most sustainable DMOs for each watershed, from least sustainable wildlife RBZ (score of 0.54), three-zone forest RBZ (0.32), and three-zone forest RBZ (0.62), respectively, for Back Creek, Sycamore Creek, and Greens Mill, to most sustainable urban RBZ (1.00) for all watersheds.

Sensitivity of Riparian Buffer Designs to Climate Change-Nutrient and Sediment Loading to Streams: A Case Study in the Albemarle-Pamlico River Basins (USA) Using HAWQS.

Riparian buffer zones (RBZs) provide multiple benefits to watershed ecosystems. We aimed to conduct an extensive sensitivity analysis of the RBZ designs to climate change nutrient and sediment loadings to streams. We designed 135 simulation scenarios starting with the six baselines RBZs (grass, urban, two-zone forest, three-zone forest, wildlife, and naturalized) in three 12-digit Hydrologic Unit Code watersheds within the Albemarle-Pamlico river basin (USA). Using the hydrologic and water quality system (HAWQS), we assessed the sensitivity of the designs to five water quality indicator (WQI) parameters: dissolved oxygen (DO), total phosphorous (TP), total nitrogen (TN), sediment (SD), and biochemical oxygen demand (BD). To understand the climate mitigation potential of RBZs, we identified a subset of future climate change projection models of air temperature and precipitation using EPA's Locating and Selecting Scenarios Online tool. Analyses revealed optimal RBZ designs for the three watersheds. In terms of watershed ecosystem services sustainability, the optimal Urban RBZ in contemporary climate (1983-2018) reduced SD from 61-96%, TN from 34-55%, TP from 9-48%, and BD from 53-99%, and raised DO from 4-10% with respect to No-RBZ in the three watersheds. The late century's (2070-2099) extreme mean annual climate changes significantly increased the projected SD and BD; however, the addition of urban RBZs was projected to offset the climate change reducing SD from 28-94% and BD from 69-93% in the watersheds. All other types of RBZs are also projected to fully mitigate the climate change impacts on WQI parameters except three-zone RBZ.

An Integrated Assessment Model for Valuing Water Quality Changes in the U.S.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) often requires expertise from environmental assessors, hydrologists, economists, and others to analyze the benefits of regional and national policy decisions related to changes in water quality. This led EPA to develop two models to form an Integrated Assessment Model (IAM): HAWQS is a web-based water quantity and quality modeling systems and BenSPLASH is a modeling platform for quantifying the economic benefits of changes in water quality. This paper discusses the development of the component models and applies HAWQS and BenSPLASH to a case study in the Republican River Basin.