ISU creates online watershed simulator
Iowa has water quality challenges. Doing something about them will mean using a variety of techniques of varying effectiveness to keep pollutants from farms and yards from reaching waterways.
Iowa State University has designed an online simulation that lets students and others tinker with a make-believe landscape to see what works and what doesn’t.
The web-based educational game is designed to help users understand the production and environmental consequences of various agricultural and conservation practices.
The simulation presents a 6,000-acre virtual watershed divided into a grid of 10-acre sections. Users choose what will be on the land — corn and soybeans, wetlands, livestock, prairie, forest or something else.
The program tracks how the land-use decisions affect agricultural production, wildlife habitat, soil quality and water quality.
Check out the tutorial here.
ISU professors are using the system in class. It is based on Midwestern land and weather conditions.
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