Wetland Drawdown Effects on Water Quality and Sediment Characteristics
Ryan Poppen Water Resources
Tyler Beitler Water Resources
Drawdowns are a technique used by wetland managers to improve soil quality, water turbidity, nutrient cycling, and much more. Our research is a pilot project designed to determine the effects of drawdowns on water quality and sediment characteristics. We sampled two different wetland cells within the Mead Wildlife Area in September of 2025. Pool Ten was in drawdown in 2020, while Teal Flowage was in drawdown in 2024. At 4 random points in the open water section of each wetland cell, water samples and sediment cores were collected, and a Secchi Depth reading was taken. We hypothesized that Teal Flowage should have better water clarity and more compact sediments due to recently being under drawdown. Our data found that total suspended solids were significantly lower (p = 0.003), turbidity was likely lower (p = 0.123), and Secchi Depth was likely higher (p = 0.128) in Teal Flowage, supporting our water clarity hypothesis. Analysis of the sediment data was less clear as bulk density was potentially higher (p = 0.217) while organic carbon was potentially lower (p = 0.318) in Teal Flowage. The sediment data supports our hypothesis, but the high amount of variability has made the statistics and our conclusion less certain. Overall, our project goal was to test our sampling protocol in the field and compare two different wetland cells. Despite our limited samples, we were able to observe promising results which will help us design a more robust sam- pling regime to answer our research question.
Advisors: Kyle Herrman, Ph.D.
Subject Area: Fisheries and Water
Type: Poster
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UW-Stevens Point College of Natural Resources
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