Influence of Cattle Trails on Runoff Quantity and Quality
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Cattle trails in grazed pastures close to rivers may adversely affect surface water quality of the adjacent river by directing runoff to it. The objective of this 3‐yr study (2013–2015) in southern Alberta, Canada, was to determine if cattle trails significantly increased the risk of runoff and contaminants (sediment, nutrients) compared with the adjacent grazed pasture (control). A portable rainfall simulator was used to generate artificial rainfall (140 mm h −1 ) and runoff. The runoff properties measured were time to runoff and initial abstraction (infiltration), total runoff depth and average runoff rates, as well as concentrations and mass loads of sediment, N, and P fractions. Cattle trails significantly ( P ≤ 0.10) decreased time to runoff and initial abstraction (26–32%) in the 2 yr measured and increased total runoff depth, runoff coefficients, and average runoff rates (21–51%) in 2 of 3 yr. Concentrations of sediment, N, and P fractions in runoff were not significantly greater for cattle trails than for control areas. However, mass loads of total suspended solids (57–85% increase), NH 4 –N (31–90%), and dissolved reactive P (DRP) (30–92%) were significantly greater because of increased runoff volumes. Overall, runoff quantity and loads of sediment, NH 4 –N, and DRP were greater for cattle trails compared with the adjacent grazed pasture, and hydrologic connection with cattle‐access sites on the riverbank suggests that this could adversely affect water quality in the adjacent river. Extrapolation of the study results should be tempered by the specific conditions represented by this rainfall simulation study. Core Ideas Runoff quantity was significantly increased in cattle trails compared with adjacent grazed pasture. Cattle trails did not increase contaminant concentrations in runoff. Mass loads of TSS, NH 4 –N, and DRP were significantly greater because of increased runoff volumes. Field observations revealed a hydrologic link between cattle trails and river. Runoff in cattle trails may adversely impact water quality in adjacent rivers.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".