SMALL WATERSHED ECOSYSTEM STUDIES: BRIEF HISTORY AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

In 1843, the Rothamsted agricultural research station (UK) started studying ecosystem and nutrient cycling. This started an era in quantifying solute, water, sediment and ecological processes for the management of agricultural and timber production, and also, for the conservation of ecological resources and biota. The Wagon Wheel Gap Experimental Watershed (est. 1911) focused its studies on streamflow and erosion and established the concept, in the US, of using watersheds as study units (a paired watershed study was started in Moravia in 1867). With the droughts of the 1930’s and the 1950’s, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) watershed research focused on “stopping the water where it falls” and on controlling “dust bowls” and erosion. In the 1960’s, initially through forested watershed studies in Scandinavia and also though monitoring at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest (US), a new direction for small watershed research was established: the transboundary transport of acidic pollutants and their impact on lake and stream productivity. Owen Bricker joined the US Geological Survey (USGS) in 1981, continuing a career that included studies on mineral weathering rates, solute and sediment loadings to Chesapeake Bay, and a seminal paper in 1970 (Cleaves, Godfrey & Bricker; GSA Bull. 81) on the geochemical balance of a small watershed. As Director of the USGS Acid Rain/Watershed Research Program, Owen established and oversaw multiple watershed research sites and emphasized the need for interdisciplinary research. Multi-agency support (e.g. National Science Foundation, Environmental Protection Agency, USDA, USGS) continues in the US for interdisciplinary watershed studies of atmospheric and other contaminants, soil and rock weathering processes, and nutrient and ecological cycling. However, the social sciences are increasingly involved. Economists are helping quantify/value “ecosystem services”: services based on an integrated understanding of ecosystem “functions”, their disturbances and variability. There is a need also for social scientists to help identify/quantify current and future anthropogenic impacts on watersheds. Policy makers and the public also need to be engaged in interpreting/applying the results of watershed studies, which suggests spurring citizen science and education.