Got High Water? Thank Neighbors' Drainage

The Brookings Register runs two articles that we should read together:

First, Ryan Woodard hears from a county official that the recent flooding on Six Mile Creek and elsewhere in Brookings County was of unprecendented intensity:

“I’ve had people on Six Mile Creek that were here in ‘69 say this is the highest they’ve seen it,” Brookings County Emergency Manager Todd Struwe told Brookings County commissioners this week.

“I’ve been here 18 years. I’ve never seen the water this high and I’ve never seen it come this fast” [Ryan Woodard, "Flood's Intensity Unprecedented, County Officials Say," Brookings Register, 2010.10.01].

The Register's John Kubal then turns to Dr. Carter Johnson to discuss the potential impacts of climate change on the Prairie Pothole Region (you know, the great American duck factory we live on). Dr. Johnson discusses a lot of the economic value we get from our prairie wetlands for free—lumber, hunting, water purification. Then Dr. Johnson turns to the economic costs of draining the wetlands, which include more intense floods:

Contrast some of the above with the draining of wetlands and tiling of fields, which leads to water going into small streams and creeks. Johnson noted that people living along the Missouri River saw floods in the 1990s "made worse by the fact that we drained wetlands" [John Kubal, "Could Our Duck Factory Go Dry?" Brookings Register, 2010.10.04].

Dr. Johnson proceeds to other important findings from his climate change research. But it's worth noting that, when it comes to our wetlands, we perhaps need to worry less about Al Gore's jet plane and more about our own digging and physical transformation of our land.

Got high water? Ditch and yard and back forty filling up faster after a big rain than they used to? It could be that, in addition to the heavier rain falling on your land, you're getting heavier drainage from your upstream neighbors. When farmers lay tile under their land and when developers dig up and tile and pave new subdivisions, they remove earth from the prairie-wide filtration system. Water that used to sit and seep out of those acres now comes rushing downstream. That's exactly what's supposed to happen: you plant corn or build a new McMansion, you don't want it sitting in water. But that drainage also shifts your water problem to folks downstream... who have a higher likelihood of seeing their homes and businesses washed away.

Earth Day at DSU: Carter Johnson on Climate Change Tonight!

DSU's College of Arts and Sciences celebrates Earth Day by bringing some serious science to town tonight. Speaking tonight at 7 p.m. in the Tunheim auditorium is Dr. W. Carter Johnson, SDSU scientist and expert on the impacts of climate change on prairie wetlands. The South Dakota native and outdoorsman has spent nearly 40 years studying the prairie potholes and their rich flora and fauna.

You can read a bunch of his published research here. But there's no required reading for tonight's lecture... and the only quiz will be a multiple-choice test given on November 2, when you pick leaders who might or might not do the right thing to protect our wetlands from further harm.

SDSU Prof Studies Climate Change Impact on Prairie Wetlands

So the scholars in the South Dakota Legislature want more "balanced" instruction in our schools about climate change? Perhaps they can turn to our own Dr. W. Carter Johnson. The South Dakota native and SDSU Professor of Ecology is doing important work studying the effects of climate change right in our backyard. His latest work on the Prairie Pothole Region just made the pages of Bioscience. Johnson and his fellow researchers find we will likely lose water, grasses, waterfowl, and other species.

In other words, we'll have fewer of the critters from the shooting of which we derive so much pleasure and revenue.

Dr. Johnson explained some of his findings on the Feb. 11 Dakota Midday on SDPB. Perhaps we can plat that tape for the kids in class to balance out the uninformed raving they here on the news from their astrologically inclined legislators.

Johnson, W., B. Werner, G. Guntenspergen, R. Voldseth, B. Millett, D. Naugle, M. Tulbure, R. Carroll, J. Tracy, and C. Olawsky. "Prairie Wetland Complexes as Landscape Functional Units in a Changing Climate. " Bioscience 60.2 (2010): 128-140. Research Library, ProQuest. Web. 26 Feb. 2010. See PDFs of this paper and other work on wetlands and climate change here.