USGS National Water Quality Assessment Program Releases New Agricultural Land Use Report

The USGS National Water Quality Assessment Program (NAQWA) has released a new data-series report and maps that could prove to be very useful in spatial and statistical analyses of land-management practices and their possible effects on the quality of water in nearby surface-water bodies and of groundwater.   The data set documents county-level tillage practices by 8-digit hydrologic unit watersheds.  County-level data were aggregated in cooperation with the Conservation Technology Information Center, including three types of conservation tillage (no-till, ridge-till, and mulch-till), reduced tillage, and intensive tillage. The dataset includes total planted acreage by tillage type for selected crops (corn, cotton, grain sorghum, soybeans, fallow, forage, newly established permanent pasture, spring and fall seeded small grains, and “other” crops) for 1989-2004. For more information, USGS suggests contacting Nancy Baker at mailto:ntbaker@usgs.gov or (317) 290-3333, ext 185.