Development, evaluation, and demonstration of simple tools for nitrogen credit trading system involving drainage water management

The overall goal of this project is to develop, evaluate, and demonstrate the use of simple tools to quantify the impacts of DWM on the reduction of N losses from subsurface drained cropland. Specific objectives include:
• Developing two easy to use and reliable DRAINMOD-based tools to quantify the reduction of annual N mass losses due to the implementation of DWM. These tools can be utilized by the Midwest and Southeast states as part of a water quality credit trading system involving DWM.
• Testing the accuracy of the tools by comparing DWM-caused reductions of annual N mass loss estimated by the developed tools to measured and/or DRAINMOD-NII predicted losses for Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Ohio, and North Carolina. Historic measured data will be used and no additional measurements will be needed for the evaluation of the performance of the tool.
• Developing a website for the tools which includes educational material on DWM, instructional and training materials on how to use the tools, and utilities for preparing the required inputs.