Tracking Chloride and Sodium Movement in the Lower Chippewa River Basin Using GIS Technologies

Mattheus de Waard (dewaarmw@uwec.edu)

David Leifer (leiferdj@uwec.edu)

Project Background
Introduction to the Issue and the Area of
Interest (AOI)

Surface water pollution from

anthropogenic activity has been increasing
in the last half century and has the
potential to severely impact aquatic
ecology. One of the sources of this water
pollution is deicing salt. According to the
Wisconsin Department of Transportations
(DOT) website, 526,000 tons of salt were
applied last winter alone to Wisconsin
roads. The use of these salt products to
clear off roads, parking lots, and other
impervious surfaces during the winter
months has increased remarkably in the
last 60 years (Mullaney, Lorenz, Arntson,
2009) When salt is applied to ice, a freezing point depression occurs as the sodium and chloride ions
separate and bond with the H20 molecules in the ice. As a result, the ice cannot remain in its solid form
and will convert back to liquid water in

Figure 1: Map of Lower chippeaw River Basin and the counties that divide it.

conditions warmer than 16 degrees Fahrenheit. This newly created water will then runoff and eventually
enter the water table either through ground permeation or flow directly into a surface water body. The
newly exposed chloride ions that were split from the original salt molecule are highly detrimental to
plants, animals, soil composition, and surface water circulation. The recommended limit for chloride in
waterbodies established by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently set at
230 milligrams per liter (Mullaney, Lorenz, Arntson, 2009).

Figure 2: Graph of showing the relationship between urban landuse and chloride concentration. Data provided by 'Wisconsin's
Long term Trend Water Quality Monitoring Program for Rivers pg. 18. Although our study area, which is in the south central
part of the state, doesnt show the highest concentration of chloride, our work here will create a model for areas that have high
urban landuse and could subsequently help them establish where mitigation works could be implemented.

Given the vast amount of literature pertaining to the negative effects of chloride on ecological
systems, a priority should be established by local governments and environmental organizations to be
more coconscious of where chloride based deicing agents are applied. Subsequently, the information

provided by this study could help the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (DOT) and the affected
counties that manage the application of these deicing agents to research more diverse strategies to
keep the roads clear of ice in areas that are deemed high contributors to chloride surface water
pollution. The goal of this GIS based project is to conduct a full analysis of the Lower Chippewa River
Basin (LCRB) in Western Wisconsin and identify areas where chloride runoff into surface water bodies is
high. Overall chloride levels have been found to be much higher in drainage ditches along the side of
roads where salt is applied (Wenta, R., Kirsti, S. 2014). In light of our research, the factors that will be
incorporated into our models will be slope, land-cover, proximity to surface water, road density and
road type. Subsequently, the results will be viewed through a geographic lens and the created models
will be used to analyze the distribution of the areas where the conditions that allows salt water runoff
into surface water be the highest.
Data
Existing research will be crucial in helping us understand the methodologies of other projects, so
that we can better incorporate such methods in our own work. The estimation model to be used is an
ArcGIS tool called the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). Implementation of this model will
incorporate sub basin areas, land-use, elevation, and soil constitutes to help us find areas around
surface water where runoff is likely the highest. The LCRB will be obtained from the Wisconsin
Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Roads will be added from the Environmental Systems Research
Institute (ESRI) server. National Land Cover Data (NLCD) will be obtained from the United States
Geological Survey (USGS). Soil data will be obtained from the United States Department of Agriculture
(USDA). The ideal projected coordinate system for this project will be the NAD 1983 HARN Wisconsin
Transvers Mercator. A numeric amount of applied salt on each road could not be obtained, so the DOTs
ranking classification of roads will be used to assign an arbitrary hierarchy of road salt application.

Identification of these parameters is important to locate sections of roads where snow removal
practices can be improved upon.
Project Approach and Specified Techniques
To locate the areas at high risk for surface water pollution from deicing agents, incorporation of
data obtained from various sources will be essential.
1. Define the Problem: What sections of road are most likely to contribute a large amount of
chloride contaminated water into the surface waters of the Lower Chippewa River Basin?
2. Acquire and input LCRB basin polygon and 30m DEM into Arc-SWAT model to delineate sub
basins: The LCRB polygon was selected from the DNR water management units, obtained from
UW-Eau Claires SQL server. Next the DEM was obtained from the DNR and clipped to our AOI.
After the ArcMap extension SWAT was downloaded, the LCRB and DEM were used as inputs to
the SWAT model to delineate sub basins along tributaries for the Chippewa River. The output
shape files created were the major basin, sub-basin polygons, stream polyline, and a longest
path line (represents longest path water must take to reach surface water per sub-basin)
Subsequently, a report of the maximum, minimum, and average of elevation for each of the 25
delineated sub-basins was produced.
3. Acquire and Input Land Use, soil type, and slope raster into Arc-Swat to produced recategorized rasters and Hydrologic Response Units (HRU).
NLCD, slope and soil type data were combined within the SWAT model to produce an HRU for
the delineated sub-basins. This determines homogenous areas in which pollution runoff can be
better estimated. These will be ranked on a scale of one to five. A subsequent HRU report will
be produced showing how prevalence of slopes, land-use/land-cover types, and soil types
compose that sub basin (shown as % of total area)

4. Join DOT road rankings with Esri roads in AOI

Once joined the road-line feature class can now be ranked and categorized by how each road is
treated by the Wisconsin DOT or the County. The ranking system would be classified based on
how often a road is salted during a winter event. These will be ranked on a scale of one to five.
5. Perform Euclidean distance on roads
Euclidian distance tool will be run to visualize the proximity of roads to LCRB tributaries. These
will be ranked on a scale of one to five.
6. Developing an Index Risk Model: The risk model will combine what was learned through the
SWAT HRUs, DOT rankings and Euclidean distance by using the raster calculator. This will
hierarchically categorize the movement of road salt to rivers in the LCRB (high moderate - low)
based on the road sections.
7. Analyze Results
Employment of this risk model will determine the Best Land Use Practices (BLUP) for the roads
located within the LCRB. Factors to reduce the movement of deicing agents to the watershed
include the following: the construction of a physical barrier to suppress the movement of salt,
reduction of salt application, changing the method of application, or changing the material
construct of the salt used.
Expected Results
The result of the SWAT model will provide an important parameter input for the risk index
model by determining the structural makeup of the land near the surface water in the LCRB. The
conditions of the land described in the ascribed categories and subsequent rankings are meant to model
the areas where water contaminated by chloride has the best chance of reaching the surface water. The
Proximity of these roads to watersheds, and what land conditions they are built on, will also help
determine the amount of salt run off expected to occur in these places. We expect to find the

substantial amount of roadways that are within close proximity and also have characteristics like high
slope and low plant cover, which would be identified as likely high contamination point.
Conclusion
The final raster model will identify where places of high deicing agent application occurs and flag
the areas where these roads are, if they are within a certain distance from a surface waterbody. The
scope of this project although very theoretical, could provide a very straightforward model of how one
could conduct a similar study. If data were available it would have been very interesting to run a
volumetric analyses on how much chloride is actually applied to the roads, using weather data and if
available data pertaining to how much salt is laid per road per winter event. One could then perhaps
create a model demonstrating how much of the chloride found in the water came from the salt which
was applied to the roads. Doing this would mean having to employ a large amount of data and vastly
further our understanding of fluvial process. With no concrete volumetric data on the LCRB for chloride,
estimations will need to input multiple factors. To ensure reliability of our conclusions and procedures,
our work used the techniques and approaches well documented by the scientific community. The final
visualization method for our results will be in the form of a poster, and will include a map displaying a
land ranks and road ranks within the LCRB. Another map will show the ranking of the sub-basins within
the LCRB, which is based upon the amount of road length that is close to water, high slope, low
vegetation and of a pours soil type. The ecological hazard of deicing agent runoff is severe and
appropriate responses to this study must be taken in order to prevent further environmental
degradation.

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