1. Background

In the decades leading up to the mid-1930s in the United States (USA), agricultural enterprises were increasingly physically and economically unsustainable due to soil erosion and flooding. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recognized that there was insufficient underlying science supporting the management of agricultural lands that could be assembled into practical land-management guidance for producers. As a result, a national effort established large and small scale research projects that would test the effectiveness of landmanagement practices under natural-weather conditions in different regions of the country to minimize agricultural environmental problems nationwide.

The originators of the experimental watershed program were visionaries as the concepts above are the needs required for ideally researching landscapes to minimize environmental damage and maximize sustainability even today. The objectives above were to investigate, within a region (hill lands of the North Appalachian Region, NAR), conservation practices at the small field scale (areas manageable by the producer—objective 1), to investigate the watershed response when the smaller nested areas (possibly not owned by the same producer) collectively interact at increasingly larger areas (objective 2—scaling), and to generalize/extrapolate the site-specific field results to ungauged areas (todays "modeling"—objective 3—recognizing the site-specificity of monitored watersheds). The founders recognized the temporal and spatial variability of weather and the landscape, the complex nonlinear areal behavior of runoff and erosion processes, the need for measuring watershed responses, and the need for developing guidance for producers in the absence of field data for unmonitored fields and watersheds. The NAEW was originally operated by the USDA—Soil Conservation Service, Division of Research, and in 1954 became part of the newly created Agricultural Research Service (ARS). NAEW has worked collaboratively throughout the 81-year history with The Ohio State University, especially through its agricultural research center located in Wooster, Ohio. Throughout its history, NAEW scientists have collaborated with university scientists and students worldwide, state and Federal agencies, and persons in the private sector. These collaborations supplied scientific expertise required for specific project objectives and facilitated addition of

Experimental Watersheds at Coshocton, Ohio, USA: Experiences and Establishing New Experimental Watersheds

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.73596

3

Construction of administrative and shop buildings, and instrumentation infrastructure started at the NAEW in about 1935 using workers from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), and the Civilian Public Service (CPS) program for construction and data collection in the early years. The NAEW was closed in December, 2015, a duration of about 81 years since the construction began. The earliest data records began in about 1937 spanning

The NAEW was chosen for its "representativeness" in the NAR which included southeast Ohio, eastern Pennsylvania, northern Kentucky, and northern West Virginia (Figure 1). Physical features considered for "representative" experimental watershed selection included soil types, climate, and other factors. Determining representativeness using physical map overlays at the time was comparable to the use of modern-day geographical information systems (GIS).

The NAEW consisted of agricultural lands in east-central Ohio (Ohio map inset in Figure 2) with slopes typically ranging from 18 to 25% and elevations ranging from about 250 to 350 m. About half of the area was in grassland with corn, soybeans, wheat, and forest comprising the

Originally, the NAEW comprised a 1854-ha watershed area with several nested gauged watersheds (Little Mill Creek [LMC] watershed, Figure 2, left). This watershed was chosen to address

78 years of data collection on the NAEW (instrumentation and data to be presented later).

new capabilities for the NAEW.

2. Physical setting

The selected site was one of 86 candidate sites [2, 4].

remaining area [2]. The latitude of the NAEW is about 40.4<sup>o</sup> N.

Consequently, three large-scale experimental watersheds were established in the USA in the mid-1930s [1]. In 1935, one of the large-scale areas established was the outdoor laboratory for land and water management research at the North Appalachian Experimental Watershed (NAEW, also known as the "Coshocton watersheds") near Coshocton, Ohio, the focus of this chapter. This chapter draws heavily from three prior publications that describe the NAEW. Reference [1] describes the NAEW as part of the three original large-scale experimental watersheds, Ref. [2] concentrates on the NAEW history and capabilities, and Ref. [3] describes the types of NAEW data available.

The purposes of this chapter are to: (1) present the history and design of the NAEW, instrumentation, physical features, unique capabilities, data available, research portfolio, and examples of accomplishments, and (2) discuss challenges likely to be encountered when establishing new experimental watersheds and suggest possible remedies. This chapter summarizes the information given in the NAEW history, research portfolio, and capabilities found in [2]. It differs from the other publications on the NAEW listed above in that it raises challenges and provides guidance for establishing new experimental watersheds based on the research experiences at the NAEW. Some of the information in [2] is reiterated here, and the reader is referred to that publication for more detailed information. As noted in this chapter, the NAEW was unique in data collected and physical features found nowhere else in the USA.

The founding document for the NAEW [4] listed three overall objectives:


The originators of the experimental watershed program were visionaries as the concepts above are the needs required for ideally researching landscapes to minimize environmental damage and maximize sustainability even today. The objectives above were to investigate, within a region (hill lands of the North Appalachian Region, NAR), conservation practices at the small field scale (areas manageable by the producer—objective 1), to investigate the watershed response when the smaller nested areas (possibly not owned by the same producer) collectively interact at increasingly larger areas (objective 2—scaling), and to generalize/extrapolate the site-specific field results to ungauged areas (todays "modeling"—objective 3—recognizing the site-specificity of monitored watersheds). The founders recognized the temporal and spatial variability of weather and the landscape, the complex nonlinear areal behavior of runoff and erosion processes, the need for measuring watershed responses, and the need for developing guidance for producers in the absence of field data for unmonitored fields and watersheds.

The NAEW was originally operated by the USDA—Soil Conservation Service, Division of Research, and in 1954 became part of the newly created Agricultural Research Service (ARS). NAEW has worked collaboratively throughout the 81-year history with The Ohio State University, especially through its agricultural research center located in Wooster, Ohio. Throughout its history, NAEW scientists have collaborated with university scientists and students worldwide, state and Federal agencies, and persons in the private sector. These collaborations supplied scientific expertise required for specific project objectives and facilitated addition of new capabilities for the NAEW.

Construction of administrative and shop buildings, and instrumentation infrastructure started at the NAEW in about 1935 using workers from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), and the Civilian Public Service (CPS) program for construction and data collection in the early years. The NAEW was closed in December, 2015, a duration of about 81 years since the construction began. The earliest data records began in about 1937 spanning 78 years of data collection on the NAEW (instrumentation and data to be presented later).
