A Systems Approach for Agricultural Land Management and Water Quality Control

ABSTRACT A distributed parameter hydrologic model was used to estimate the average annual sediment yield from subareas of an agricultural watershed under spatially distinct land management strategies. The sediment yield output from the hydrologic simulation was used to estimate activity coefficients for a linear programming model to identify the management strategy with the least sediment yield at acceptable farm income levels. The analysis showed that substitution of conservation management practices could be highly cost-effective if they produce profit levels near those of conventional, more erosive practices.