Water News Archive

Nebraska's abundant domestic water supply is generally taken for granted. However some situations can reduce the availability of safe drinking water, including tornadoes, floods, winter storms, or even earthquakes. Such disasters may interrupt the water supply for only a few hours or up to several days. In these situations an emergency water supply is helpful, if not essential.

The Nebraska Ag Water Management Network (NAWMN, Irmak (2005)) project is designed for encouraging the adoption of newer technologies that will enable farmers to use water and energy resources associated with irrigated crop production efficiently.

UNL Extension presents trainings for water well professionals as part of their CEU requirements. UNL Extension also conduces educational sessions at professional conferences and seminars. Extension also educates both urban and rural residents to increase understanding of good management of drinking water supplies. Nitrate, arsenic and uranium are identified as some of the top concerns for water supplies. These issues and more are the subjects of UNL Extension's educational efforts.

While tillage has been used to prepare a seedbed, it also destroys the existing root structures in the soil and some of the soil's biological life. Without this biological life, soil structure suffers and many of the nutrients are not as available for crop uptake.

Everyone lives in a watershed. A watershed is the land area that contributes water to a location, usually a stream, pond, lake or river. Everything that we do on the surface of our watershed impacts the water quality of our streams, wetlands, ponds, lakes and rivers. What happens in one locality affects other downstream areas.

Once good soils are in place, create water zones. Water zones are distinct sections of your property which contain plants with similar water needs. Group ornamentals into H-M-L zones in the landscape. Keep each distinct plant group by themselves – set watering minutes per zone accordingly.