More than 20 agricultural and environmental partners in Illinois are implementing a Regional Conservation Partnership Program Project (RCPP) in the Upper Macoupin Creek (UMC) area. The project encourages farmer adoption of soil-health conservation practices that improves both farm profitability and water quality in the creek (farmland.org/project/upper-macoupin-creek-watershed-partnership/). In addition, RCPP aims to set and measure the environmental, social, and economic outcomes associated with implementing these practices. American Farmland Trust leads RCPP and is guided by the UMC Steering Committee, a 17-member group of farmers, agricultural retailers, and national and local conservation agency representatives.
American Farmland Trust has been developing the measurement and evaluation plan since 2017 to help the partnership set outcome goals; establish baseline indicators for those goals; identify partners, tools, and techniques to track indicator change over time; and regularly report on progress. The evaluation plan is continually updated, streamlined, and simplified as the project team moves closer to selecting the implementation methods and tools to quantify project outcomes. The evaluation plan changes and becomes more robust over time as more data are collected, analyzed, and interpreted. Additionally, the plan provides an opportunity to develop strategies to address new information and adaptively manage through mid-course corrections, if needed.
The Spatial Watershed Assessment and Management Model completed for the UMC project area will allow for targeting in-field and edge-of-field nutrient and sediment reduction strategies for specific sites. The model will be used to quantify current conditions, including topography, land use, and type of farming, as well to estimate sediment and nutrient load reductions from proposed BMPs on a field-by-field basis.
A new conservation technician targets and promotes conservation cropping systems and provides one-on-one conservation planning to all landowners in the project area, not just those who qualify for NRCS programs. The technician provides landowners with maps highlighting the right practices at the right places on their farms.
