The Nature Conservancy - UMR - Iowa

The Upper Mississippi River Program

Boone River: Farming for Clean Water

Covering 895 square miles of north-central Iowa, the Boone River’s watershed is both environmentally and economically significant. Boone tributaries contain habitat designated as critical for continued survival of the Topeka shiner, a federally listed endangered species. Other rare mussel and fish species also depend on the watershed’s streams, as do humans: the Boone feeds the Des Moines River, a secondary water source for the city of Des Moines.

In addition, soils in much of the watershed are well suited for farming and more than 83 percent of it is currently used for row crop agriculture. Tile drainage systems on much of that acreage provide a direct route for field run-off to reach the Boone and other surface waters.

Although a Nature Conservancy assessment of the Boone determined its watershed to be among the healthiest in Iowa's great farmland, it also determined that changes in water quality, stream flow and physical habitat were hurting the watershed’s plants and animals. However, according to that study, none of those changes appeared beyond repair.

In keeping with a core belief that economy and ecology can thrive alongside each other, the Conservancy has joined with other organizations and stakeholders in the Boone River Watershed Partnership to determine land- and water-management practices that will protect freshwater quality and species while sustaining area agriculture. Partners in this work include the Iowa Soybean Association, Prairie Rivers of Iowa Resource Conservation & Development, Iowa State University and private landowners.

As a major part of this effort, Iowa State University’s Center for Agriculture and Rural Development is developing a highly detailed computer model of the watershed. The model will enable the Conservancy and its partners to evaluate the effects of various farming practices, thus serving as a guide in identifying conservation actions with the potential to simultaneously benefit the area’s working farmers and environment.

For example, adding nutrients to soil is greatly expensive for farmers. Finding new ways to keep those nutrients on the land, rather than having them wash away into area waterways, benefits farmers by reducing the amounts of nutrients required to maintain crop productivity and by lowering the energy costs of applying them.

The work along the Boone River is of importance locally and on a much wider scale. Lessons learned within the watershed will be shared through the Conservancy’s Upper Mississippi River Program, Lower Mississippi River Program and Great Rivers Partnership to advance the Conservancy’s national and global efforts to protect the Earth’s critically important freshwater resources.

corn harvesting, row crop

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