A model framework to assess the effect of dairy farms and wild fowl on microbial water quality during base-flow conditions

Abstract

There is concern regarding microbial water quality in many pastoral catchments in New Zealand which are home to numerous livestock and wild animals. Information on microbial impacts on water quality from these animals is scarce. A framework is needed to summarise our current knowledge and identify gaps at the scale of an individual farm. We applied a Monte Carlo modelling approach to a hypothetical dairy farm based on the extensive data sets available for the Toenepi Catchment, Waikato, New Zealand. The model focused on quantifiable direct inputs to the stream from ducks, cows and farm dairy effluent (FDE) during base-flow conditions. Most of the inputs of Escherichia coli from dairy farms occur sporadically and, therefore, have little effect on the expected median stream concentrations. These sporadic inputs do however, have a strong influence on extrema such as 95th percentile values. Current farm mitigations of fencing streams and using improved management practices for applying FDE to land, such as low application rate deferred FDE irrigation systems, would appreciably reduce faecal microbial inputs to the stream. However, the concentrations of E. coli in rural streams may not reduce as much as expected as wild fowl living in streams would have a larger effect on water quality than a farm in which environmental mitigations are widely implemented.