Director's Notes
January/February 2010
The Great Cow Count
Cattle farming, just like many other land uses (residential and commercial development, forest harvest, crops, etc.) impacts stream conditions. But in the Rivanna basin, the importance of cattle farming relative to other land uses is not well understood. Looking at the watershed as a whole, are cattle a major stress? Or are cattle of negligible concern compared to development?
StreamWatch is trying to shed light on these and related questions by quantifying cattle populations and grazing acreage. Over the past few months, led by super-volunteer Gus Colom, StreamWatch volunteers have pored over high-resolution imagery of the Rivanna landscape, literally counting cows. We won’t find them all, but we will be able to quantify relative cattle farming intensity in Rivanna subwatersheds. For instance, we’ll be able to say that subwatershed “A” has higher cattle density per acre than subwatershed “B”. We can then compare these data to stream health in the subwatersheds.
The cow data will be analyzed along with other land use/land cover data in our Land Use Study. To our knowledge, analysis of this kind has never been performed in Virginia. We hope to shed new light on key land use/stream health questions, and to provide information that facilitates excellent stewardship by private and public landowners.