MLRA Approach to Soil Survey Why Change?

MLRA Approach to Soil Survey Why Change?

1985 farm bill - big push to complete mapping of all farm lands------Conservation was directly linked as a prerequisite to cost share of conservation practices and commodity payments. ASCS, Farm Credit, etc. wanted data on all the farmland. They knew all farmland was mapped and when they found inconsistency in data between fields or on the same soils, same farm, different county, they complained. Other agencies wanted multi county, state, and national data sets. They wanted them digitized. They too found the mismatches in lines as well as data, and they couldn’t handle all the different legends.

Customers wanted electronic data as well as hard copy. They wanted unique interpretations. Some wanted information for unique areas.

With a great variety of need as far as updating.

With all of that, what are we trying to do with this new approach? Improving the quality of data includes additional investigations and characterization of soils. Some of our most common soils have the least data. New attributes need to be collected. Modeled or projected data needs to be confirmed. Investigate landscape functions. How can we provide better information on soils if we consider their interactions with the landscape?

MLRA legends: I’ve heard lots about this during the weeks leading up to this meeting. Much of it negative, but this is essential. I think, as with so many things we do, the terminology is getting in the way of the idea. The basic premise is this:

Soils on similar landscape positions, with similar climate, parent materials, age, etc. Should be the same or very similar. ie. MLRA

HOW DO WE DO ALL THAT?

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  Develop soil survey legends on an MLRA basis
  
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  Evaluate the workload and locate offices where there is a long term (15-20 year) need
  
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  Establish “Super MLRA Project Offices”
  
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  Clearly define the administrative soil survey area
  

Or for that matter, any other geographic entity you want to define ----

Within the area defined, investigations should apply to the entire area.
Review the placement and description of soils throughout their natural extent and improve on the mapping and description of those soils. Get rid of the Taxajuncts and variants. Where need be, combine series or parts of series. Where need be split out phases of series to accommodate changes in soil moisture or temperature due to subtleties in landscape position or shifts from north to south etc.

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  Staff offices to conduct efficient project type work
  
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  Appropriate expertise from foresters, agronomists, GIS experts, range conservationists, etc., should be available
  
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  Focus on providing, not a book
  
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  Phase in at the earliest opportunity
  

Administrative area: what is this all about? It has to do with conducting project activities. Soil Survey is by policy to be conducted on a project basis. That means an area is identified that can be staffed, equipped, and completed within a 3 to 5 year period. That is an administrative area. That is different in most cases from a MLRA. It is smaller, a subset if you will. It is essential for us to be able to provide imagery and other support that must be scheduled. It is essential for efficient operations.

Adequate communication links: You have heard us encourage placing these offices on University campuses where possible. That is primarily because the Universities have better telecommunications that we do in our offices.