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Despite decades of policy that strives to reduce nutrient and sediment export from agricultural fields, surface water quality in intensively managed agricultural landscapes remains highly degraded. Recent analyses show that current conservation efforts are not sufficient to reverse widespread water degradation in Midwestern agricultural systems. Intensifying row crop agriculture and increasing climate pressure require a more integrated approach to water quality management that addresses diverse sources of nutrients and sediment and off-field mitigation actions. We used multiobjective optimization analysis and integrated three biophysical models to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of alternative portfolios of watershed management practices at achieving nitrate and suspended sediment reduction goals in an agricultural basin of the Upper Midwestern United States. Integrating watershed-scale models enabled the inclusion of near-channel management alongside more typical field management and thus directly the comparison of cost-effectiveness across portfolios. The optimization analysis revealed that fluvial wetlands (i.e., wide, slow-flowing, vegetated water bodies within the riverine corridor) are the single-most cost-effective management action to reduce both nitrate and sediment loads and will be essential for meeting moderate to aggressive water quality targets. Although highly cost-effective, wetland construction was costly compared to other practices, and it was not selected in portfolios at low investment levels. Wetland performance was sensitive to placement, emphasizing the importance of watershed scale planning to realize potential benefits of wetland restorations. We conclude that extensive interagency cooperation and coordination at a watershed scale is required to achieve substantial, economically viable improvements in water quality under intensive row crop agricultural production.

Emerging theory suggests that the ecosystem‐level consequences of anthropogenic pressures depend on how species will be disassembled from ecological communities (i.e. the disassembly rule). Species loss, however, is not the sole ecological cause of ecosystem function loss: behaviours underpinning ecosystem function can also be disrupted by anthropogenic pressures without detectable declines of component species (‘cryptic function loss’).

Understanding controls of P movement through watersheds are essential for improved landscape management in intensively managed regions. Here, we analyze observational data from 104 gaged river sites and 176 nongaged river sites within agriculturally dominated watersheds of Minnesota, USA, to understand the role of landscape features, land use practices, climate variability, and biogeochemical processes in total, dissolved and particulate P dynamics at daily to annual scales. Our analyses demonstrate that factors mediating P concentration‐discharge relationships varied greatly across watersheds and included near‐channel sediment sources, lake and wetland interception, assimilation by algal P, and artificial land drainage. The majority of gaged sites exhibited mobilizing behavior for all forms of P at event (i.e., daily) timescales and chemostatic behavior at annual timescales. The large majority of watershed P export (>70%, on average) occurred during high flow conditions, suggesting that more frequent large storm events arising from climate change will drive increased P losses from agricultural watersheds without substantial management changes. We found that P export could be dominated by dissolved P, particulate P, or an even mix of the two forms, depending on watershed attributes. Implementation of management practices to control P losses must be guided by understanding of how local landscapes interact with current and future climate conditions. Managing for both dissolved and particulate P is required to reduce overall P load in many agricultural watersheds.