Solution details
Platform:
Online
Description:
The Conservation Effects Assessment Project – Grazing Lands (CEAP-GL) team at the National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) needed a spatial and tabular means of displaying soil characteristics that typically indicate potential changes in ecological sites, and to both discretize and aggregate heterogenous landscapes for modeling purposes. The team partnered with Stone to create an online, map-based application that provides management-pertinent soils data for more efficient conservation planning, links research-scale data to soils data, helps users identify soil/ecological site concepts and groups landscapes for modeling purposes. The intended users are soil scientists or conservationists, rangeland/pastureland management specialists, agronomists, foresters, ecological site specialists, and anyone wanting to query specific soil properties or characteristics at the MLRA (major land resource area) scale from current soil survey geographic information (SSURGO). The query tool allows users to choose desired soil characteristics from current SSURGO and 30m gSSURGO data. CEAP-GL team members identified the most useful soil characteristics that influence vegetation and water dynamics needed for grazing land modeling and other project work. Data is displayed by MLRA, in which the user can select different soil moisture and temperature regimes, then query all soil components for specific physical and chemical characteristics (derived from specified depths or thicknesses in the profile) for all mapped components. The output soil map unit component data will allow users to more efficiently display or create ecological site concepts, group soil components for modeling, and aid NRCS planners, ranchers and other agencies in developing conservation and monitoring plans. Visit the site at ssurgoqt.com.
Industries:
Agriculture, Community Development, Conservation, Education, Electric & Gas, Environmental Management, Forestry, GIS, Highways & Roads, Water Resources, Water, Wastewater & Stormwater