Water quality and simulated effects of urban land-use change in J.B. Converse Lake watershed, Mobile County, Alabama, 1990-2003

Impacts of Forest to Urban Land Conversion and ENSO Phase on Water Quality of a Public Water Supply Reservoir

“…Watershed simulations also support elevated post-urbanization nutrient concentrations [22]. Converse Reservoir response to changing land use was evaluated previously using a BATHTUB reservoir model [23]. Modelers found increased TP and TN loads, changes in trophic state and increased algal blooms.…”

“…Past concerns about the quality of Converse Reservoir as a supply source for drinking water prompted various scientific investigations [20,21,23,[26][27][28]. Tributary and reservoir water quality data were collected by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), Auburn University (AU) and MAWSS under various sampling programs beginning in 1990.…”

“…Here we concurrently evaluate the impacts of watershed urbanization and ENSO phase on reservoir water quality. The modeling utilized in this study expands previous efforts by utilizing coupled watershed and reservoir models rather than the BATHTUB model [23], simulating the entire year, rather than April to September only, and using a realistic estimate of watershed urbanization, rather than the expectation of 100% land development. This study builds upon previous efforts [15,19] by relating ENSO phase to reservoir, rather than stream, water quality.…”

Estimating the Public Water Supply Protection Value of Forests

“…Concerns about the quality of Converse Reservoir as a supply source for drinking water led to various scientific investigations (ADEM , ; Bayne et al ; Journey et al ; Journey and Gill ; Gill et al ). Tributary and reservoir water quality data have been collected by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), Auburn University (AU), and MAWSS under various sampling programs and intervals from 1990 to 2005.…”

“…The drinking water intake is on Hamilton Creek 4.8 km from the mainstem of the reservoir. Concerns about the quality of Converse Reservoir as a supply source for drinking water led to various scientific investigations (ADEM 1996(ADEM , 2003Bayne et al 1998;Journey et al 1995;Journey and Gill 2001;Gill et al 2005 Stein et al 2005) evaluated urbanization at a national scale and depicted increased population and urban housing densities within the Converse Watershed every 10 years between 1990 and 2030. Local, regional and national urbanization studies described above concur that the Converse Watershed will likely experience significant urbanization in the coming decades.…”