The 2008 Joint Meeting of the Society for Range Management and the America Forage and Grassland Council.

Thursday, January 31, 2008 - 11:40 AM

The National Cooperative Soil Survey - A Partnership in Cooperative Soil Resource Inventory

William G. Ypsilantis, National Science and Technology Center, USDI, Bureau of Land Management, Denver Federal Center Bldg. 50, Denver, CO 80225, James R. Renthal, WO 220, USDI, Bureau of Land Management, 1620 L Street NW, Washington, DC 20240, Robert J. Ahrens, National Soil Survey Center, USDA, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Federal Building Room 152, 100 Centennial Mall, North, Lincoln, NE, and Maxine J. Levin, Soil Survey Division, USDA, Natural Resources Conservation Service, 1400 Independence Ave. SW, 4250 South Building, Washington, DC.

The National Cooperative Soil Survey (NCSS) is a nationwide partnership of Federal, regional, State, and local agencies and institutions.  The NCSS partnership works together to cooperatively investigate, inventory, document, classify, and interpret soils and to disseminate, publish, and promote the use of information about the soils and ecological sites of the United States and its trust territories.  The NCSS has established common standards, guidelines, definitions, policy, and procedures for conducting soil survey in the United States and its trust territories.  These common standards and procedures include rigorous guidelines for quality control and quality assurance.  The results are that soil survey in any part of the country, regardless of land ownership is a consistent, high quality product. 

 The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has derived many benefits from being a member of the NCSS.  We are assured that our soil surveys are high quality and consistent.  The delivery of soil information to BLM and all soil survey customers is in an electronic GIS-based format.  Soil information is available through the Web Soil Survey in an easy-to-use format that meets many of our customer needs.  Soil data from the Soil Data Mart can be downloaded and viewed with a tool called Soil Data Viewer that is available to BLM and other more technically skilled users.  This format allows users to integrate soil information into their corporate GIS platform to be combined with other geospatial information for detailed analysis. 

An important part of the soil surveys and soil survey delivery for BLM is the development and availability of ecological site descriptions.  This information is a cornerstone of land health assessments, ecological site inventory, and a multitude of other applications.


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