WHAT IS SERA-46?

Research

Land Grant Universities conduct research ranging from basic discovery to on-the-ground applications of the science of soil conservation, nutrient movement, water quality, & human behavior.

Extension

Extension specialists and educators put the science into practice by educating farmers and agribusinesses, conducting on-farm research, and understanding farm-level economics & farmer decision making.

The Mississippi River Basin

The Mississippi River accounts for nearly two-thirds of the freshwater flows to the Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi-Missouri River is the fourth longest in the world and drains the third largest river basin in the world. The Basin includes all or parts of 31 states and 2 Canadian Provinces, covering roughly 40% of the land in the 48 contiguous states. More than 72 million people live in the Mississippi River Basin. It is the migration corridor for 60 percent of North America's bird species and supports 25 percent of its fish species. The river provides water to more than 50 cities and 18 million people and serves as a major shipping and transportation corridor for US commerce. 

Annually, significant portions of US wheat, cotton, and rice crops are grown in the Mississippi River Basin, and it contains extensive livestock operations (pork, poultry, beef, dairy). More than 70% of the nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) delivered to the Gulf of Mexico is associated with agricultural and other non-point activities. Nitrate loads in the Mississippi River increased about threefold from the 1950s to the mid-1990s. High nutrient loads, loss of floodplains and wetlands, population growth, anthropogenic changes to the landscape, increased combustion of fossil fuel, engineering of the river system, and point sources contribute to water quality impairments in the Basin, hypoxia in the Gulf, and a decline in the resilience of these systems.