Hydrology First

If you live or work in Wisconsin’s Central Sands, you know this region is both economically and ecologically important, and is also the epicenter of some of the state’s most widespread and urgent water management concerns.

The purpose of this story map is to encourage land and water managers to examine how altered hydrology contributes to Central Wisconsin’s water management concerns and to explore the many ways that hydrologic restoration could help improve soil, water, and watershed health.

Water management issues in Central Wisconsin are as diverse as the landscape itself. However, the three issues that receive the most attention and investments are:

1. Groundwater depletion
2. Excessive nutrient levels in surface and groundwaters
3. Degraded fish and wildlife habitat

Though various factors contribute to these concerns, to understand and address them, we need to first consider hydrology.

Hydrology is the field of science that examines the occurrence, distribution, and movement of water and its relationship with the environment in each phase of a larger hydrologic cycle. The movement of water is characterized as the hydrologic cycle because all waters are connected and move through our landscapes in relatively predictable ways.

Follow along in the water cycle diagram below, created by the United States Geological Survey. Note that while this is a big-picture view that includes the oceans and mountains that do not exist in Wisconsin, much of the interconnectedness of water, landscape, and humans remains the same. (Tip: click on the image to make it larger if you are viewing on a computer monitor, or pinch and drag the image larger if on a mobile device.)

Understanding how altered hydrology contributes to regional water management concerns requires consideration of two questions:

1. How did this landscape develop?
2. What's changed?

Before Euro-American settlement, large wetland complexes, sand prairies, oak forests, savannas, and barrens dominated the area. Today the area is still wetland and water rich, but the hydrology of the region has been extensively disrupted in a variety of ways, including but not limited to:

• Wetland Drainage
• Stream Channelization
• Dams and Water Control Structures
• Groundwater Withdrawal
• Other Hydrologic Stressors

Read on and explore the Central Sands maps to learn more.

We’ve shown that the Central Sands region is a diverse and complex landscape and that topography, geology, and historic and current land uses all influence the movement, characteristics, and availability of water today. We've also shown that hydrologic alteration is widespread across the region.​

​You can begin to understand these impacts by thinking about them in the context of the most pressing local water management concerns. Examining the patterns of hydrologic alteration at a sub-watershed or catchment scale can also help communities begin to think more holistically about what contributes to today’s water concerns. Look for combinations of patterns in the maps below to see where, for example, there is both a high percentage (darkest colored sub-watersheds) of both irrigation and agricultural ditching.

Tips for Exploring Your Part of the Watershed: Use arrows on left and right of map below to move between sub-watershed maps. Use the plus and minus in the bottom right to zoom in and out. Use your mouse to click and hold to move the map around. For a map legend, click the button in the bottom left.

Local knowledge and engagement is key because the available data is coarse and may not be 100% accurate. Combining available data with local knowledge on water management hot spots and their root causes can help paint a more complete picture of restoration needs and opportunities. Further data analysis may be needed, but it’s not the first step. The first step is community conversations, which can drive the effort to examine the relationship between altered hydrology and priority water management concerns in your watershed.

Step 1: Identify problems and potential solutions. Examples of measurable improvements that restoration of wetlands, streams, and floodplains can help achieve include but are not limited to:

• Increased groundwater infiltration
• Increased baseflow
• Improved fish and wildlife habitat
• Reduced erosion
• Increased flood storage
• Reduced nitrates
• Improved forage

Step 2: Establish Partnerships. Most communities need technical support to assess and address degraded hydrology. Partners with expertise in hydrologic assessment, and wetland, stream, and floodplain restoration, can help identify and prioritize high impact restoration opportunities and can support efforts to secure restoration funding.

Step 3: Ask and answer these questions:

1. How did this place develop?
2. What has changed?
3. What can be restored in a modern context to help solve problems?

Explore the links below to learn about how some Wisconsin communities are implementing this step-wise approach to hydrologic assessment and restoration planning.  In both cases, teams of partners are using data and analysis as well as local knowledge to inform local decisions about voluntary hydrologic restoration priorities and projects:

•  Little Plover River Watershed Enhancement Project 
•  Marengo River Watershed Strategic Floodplain and Wetland Restoration Project 

For additional information or to discuss opportunities to support hydrologic research or the establishment of a hydrology-focused assessment of water management concerns in your watershed, contact: Tracy Hames (wwa222@wisconsinwetlands.org).

For additional information on the maps and data content in this ArcGIS StoryMap, contact: Stephanie Rockwood (gis@wisconsinwetlands.org).

Credits

This StoryMap and the spatial data and maps used within were developed by Wisconsin Wetlands Association (WWA), Emmons & Olivier Resources (EOR), and the Village of Plover through work supported by an EPA Wetland Program Development Grant.