The Turkey River Watershed Management Authority (WMA) has several upcoming opportunities for community members to share their questions, stories, and goals related to the Turkey River Watershed. The Turkey River Watershed includes more than one million acres across eight counties in Northeast Iowa.

The WMA will host three open house listening sessions where community members and stakeholders can learn more about the Turkey River Watershed and share their own experiences, hopes, and concerns related to the Turkey River.… Read more ›

The Daily Erosion Project (DEP) estimates precipitation, runoff, sheet and rill erosion, and hillslope delivery in near real time, on over 2000 watersheds in the Midwest (Figure 1). It does this by running the Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) model with a combination of remotely-sensed precipitation weather stations, remotely-sensed crop and residue cover, remotely-sensed topography, and soils databases.

It is an update and expansion to the Iowa Daily Erosion Project (Cruse et al.,… Read more ›

In September 2016, the Iowa Watersheds Project ended with the completion of over 150 built structures including ponds, terraces, wetlands, water and sediment control basins, and on-road structures. The Iowa Flood Center received $4.5M from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for the five-year project aimed at mitigating flood risk in select Iowa watersheds.

The specific goals of the project aimed to:

  •     Maximize soil water holding capacity from precipitation;
  •     Minimize severe soil erosion and sand deposition during floods;
  •     Manage water runoff in uplands under saturated soil moisture conditions;
  •     Reduce and mitigate structural and nonstructural flood damage
Phase I – Hydrologic Assessment

Hydrologic assessments were completed to further understand the hydrology, assess risk, and prepare a plan to minimize future losses in watershed participating in this study.… Read more ›

Farmers and landowners in the Turkey River Watershed are invited to a farm profitability workshop on Friday, Feb. 24 from 8:00 a.m.-10:00 am at the Fayette County Fairgrounds Dance Pavilion in West Union.

As profit margins get tighter, farm profitability is more important than ever. Attendees will learn about profitability analysis as a way to evaluate and improve farm performance.

At the workshop, Dan Bahe, AgSolver precision business planning specialist, will explain the profitability analysis process and the basic information needed to get started.… Read more ›