The Bear River Basin

Point and non-point sources of Nitrogen loading in

the surface water

Jonna van Opstal

Introduction

Introduction

• 3 states

• 6 HUC-8’s

• 491 miles

Uinta mtns >

Great Salt Lake

Objectives

1. Holistic dataset on water quality issues

2. Determine point and non-point sources of N loading in the Bear River

e.g. industries (point source) and agricultural runoff (non-point source)

Methodology

Step 1 Acquiring data

Step 2 Displaying

holistic datasets

Bearriverinfo.org Tools:

clip, dissolve

Step 3 Water quality

measurements

Waterdata.usgs.gov Tools: selection by attributes, editing

Step 4 Analysis data

Landcover vs

Water quality

Impaired rivers

• Exceeding TMDL

• Utah water quality standard

― NO3-N 4 mg/L

― P 0.05 mg/L

UAC R317-2

USGS water quality stations

Total N Spring

Ü0 4,000 Meters

Legend

Spring

TN_2001_3

0- 0.50

0.51 - 1.20

1.21 - 2.00

2.01 - 2.80

Bear River

Landuse

Agriculture

Barren

Forest

Rangeland

Tundra

Urban/Built Up

Water

Wetlands

Total N Summer

Ü0 4,000 Meters

Legend

Summer

TN_2001_8

0.00 - 0.50

0.51 - 1.10

1.11 - 1.20

1.21 - 2.50

Bear River

Landuse

Agriculture

Barren

Forest

Rangeland

Tundra

Urban/Built Up

Water

Wetlands

Point and non- point sources

Ü0 4,000 Meters

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Legend

!. tmdl_points

Bear River

Landuse

Agriculture

Barren

Forest

Rangeland

Tundra

Urban/Built Up

Water

Wetlands

Summary

• Holistic dataset

• Water quality measurements:

– Samples, no real time data

– Consistency

– Concentrations [mg/L]

• Modeling with schematic processor

Thank you!