The Nature Conservancy in Indiana - Upper St. Joseph Project Office & Two-Stage Ditches Update

Upper St. Joseph Project Office's Two-Stage Ditch Work Update

For More Information

The Upper St. Joe office has created a brochure on the two-stage ditch that can be downloaded and printed here.

If you'd like to learn more about the Conservancy's work concerning two-stage ditches, please contact:

Joe Draper, Upper St. Joseph River Project Director, at jdraper@tnc.org or call (260) 665-9141

On a beautiful, warm September day, 55 people gathered from three different states to hear the benefits and processes of designing a two-stage ditch. Experts spoke from The Ohio State University on designing the ditch which features broader built-in benches along side a naturally forming channel. Also researchers from Notre Dame University spoke on monitoring results of such ditches for excess removal of nitrogen and the effect on biodiversity. The luncheon speaker was from the NRCS East Technology Support Center for Design and co-author of the National Restoration Handbook for NRCS. The book devotes an entire chapter on two-stage ditch design.

The afternoon held a field trip to a local site where a two-stage design is being implemented on over two miles of ditch. Follow up is planned with monitoring information to be available in the coming months.

What is a Two-Stage Ditch?

The concept of the two-stage ditch is quite simple. It was developed by observing natural processes that form stable streams and rivers. The design incorporates a floodplain zone, called benches, into the ditch by removing the ditch banks roughly 2-3 feet about the bottom for a width of about 10 feet on each side. This allows the water to have more area to spread out on and decreases the velocity - or energy - of the water. The flow of that water is a function of the velocity and area of the water. And since flow can be considered as the amount of water moving through the ditch, the design has actually increased the amount of water that the ditch can process by constructing the benches, or floodplain area.

The benefits of a two-stage ditch over the typical agricultural ditch include both improved drainage function and ecological function. The two-stage design improves ditch stability by reducing water flow and the need for maintenance, saving both labor and money. It also has the potential to create and maintain better habitat conditions here in Indiana.

What The Nature Conservancy is Doing with Two-stage Ditches

The Nature Conservancy's Indiana Chapter has been working on two-stage ditch designs in headwater areas of rivers in our aquatic portfolio sites for several years now.These areas allow the greatest potential to improve the condition of the downstream, larger rivers.

In 2007, The Joyce Foundation provided $5 million in grants to The Nature Conservancy and three other conservation organizations that would pay for projects in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio that would offer tangible and lasting improvements to both water quality and wildlife habitat in the Maumee River - one of the largest sources of pollution to Lake Erie.

The Conservancy uses these funds to fuel projects around St. Joseph River, found in northeastern Indiana. Hoosier farmers volunteer to test the two-stage design with the goal of 2-4 miles of these ditches in the Fish Creek watershed - a St. Joseph tributary. There are also plans to restore 1,500 acres of wetlands and riparian corridors along St. Joe to filter water for nutrients and to reduce soil erosion. The construction of more two-stage ditches are set to begin this fall.