Presentations
21st Century Drainage in Illinois: Changes and Challenges
http://thesoyreport.blogspot.comAgricultural drainage is almost as old as agriculture itself, and the practice has produced thousands of acres of fertile cropland in the Midwestern United States. Drainage systems have a significant effect on the hydrology and water quality of the watersheds in which they occur; there is a strong correlation between improved drainage and elevated nutrient transport from cropped land, for example. While for most of its history agricultural drainage has been directed towards improving crop production, in recent years, conservation drainage practices, that is, practices that are optimized for production, water quality and water harvesting, have become the main focus of researchers in Illinois, and other Midwestern states. Practices such as drainage water management, modifying subsurface drainage depth/spacing combinations, the use of cover crops, and the use of passive subsurface bioreactors are still being developed and tested. These practices have proven to be efficacious at the field scale, reducing nitrate and phosphorus loads to surface water bodies. Work is being conducted to determine their efficacy at the watershed scale, and to optimize drainage system design in response to climate change.
Speakers
Dr. Richard Cooke
Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering
Urbana, 61801
BIO: Richard Cooke is an Associate Professor and Drainage Extension Specialist in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the University of Illinois. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Agricultural Engineering from the University of the West Indies, Trinidad, a Masters Degree in Agricultural Engineering from the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, and a Doctorate in Agricultural Engineering from Virginia Tech. He teaches courses in Drainage and Water Management, Land and Water Management Systems, Drainage Design and Layout, and Nonpoint Source Pollution Modeling. He has developed computer software for robust trend surface analysis, interpolation, the analysis of paired watersheds, the statistical analysis of field data, fitting homogeneous and heterogeneous distributions to data, and analyzing yield maps from paired drainage systems. His current research focus is on the development and evaluation of drainage-related best management practices for improving water quality, watershed-scale modeling of subsurface drainage systems, and the development of multi-objective design criteria for subsurface drainage systems. He served as Editor for the Proceedings of the Eighth International Drainage Symposium, developed the online version of the Illinois Drainage Guide, and is working on the development of the Midwest Conservation Drainage Guide.
