Nutrient Management Cooperatives in California’s Lower Salinas and Monterey Bay: Modeling Partnerships for Improving Water Quality in Irrigated Lands

Resource Conservation District of Monterey County proposes to establish a cooperative model for pooling resources to comply with water quality regulations, making conservation practices more widely applicable in high-value, irrigated agricultural lands. The cooperative approach acts as a framework for strategic and spatially explicit modeling, siting, and monitoring of on- and off-farm treatment areas. This project will lead to a streamlined approach to compliance with water quality regulation in California, as well as the development of a decision support tool that would aid new cooperatives in identifying and implementing coordinated water quality improvement strategies on their aggregated lands.