NRCS Technical Soil Services
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Technical Soil Services (TSS) focuses on supporting the use of soil information through activities like conservation planning, providing soil-related information and training, and supporting youth education. State Soil Scientists and resource soil scientists located in NRCS offices provide TSS. Primary data sources include SSURGO, STATSGO, and the National Soil Characterization Database accessed through Web Soil Survey. Primary TSS activities include technical consultations, creating custom soil products, education and training, and supporting NRCS conservation planning and initiatives. TSS aims to maintain a balance of support for internal and external customers in the future.
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NRCS Technical Soil Services
- 1. NRCS Technical soil services (TSS): Helping customers make better use of soils Information SWCS – Madison, WI July 30 – August 2, 2017 M. P. Robotham and P. J. Thomas, UDSA-NRCS
- 2. What is Technical Soil Services (TSS)? Activities that focus on supporting the use of soils information Examples include: –Supporting conservation planning and agency initiatives (e.g. soil health) –Providing soils-related information and training (internal and external) –Supporting youth education (soil judging, conservation awareness contests, etc.) More than just providing data
- 3. Who provides TSS? • State Soil Scientists −Key point of contact for TSS activities in their state(s) • Resource soil scientists –Located in national, regional, state, area, and field offices • Soil Science Division staff soil scientists –Located in Soil Survey Regional and local offices • Soil scientists employed by other units of government • Private sector consultants (CPSS)
- 4. Primary data sources • Official Soils Information • SSURGO and gSSURGO • Estimated data for components and map units (rv’s) • Includes use/management interpretations • Most often 1:24,000 scale • STATSGO • Estimated data, 1:250,000 scale • National Soil Characterization Database • Laboratory results from individual soil profiles (~60,000) • Ecological site descriptions and transition models • On-site assessments
- 5. Available via the Web Soil Survey (WSS) http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/
- 6. Primary TSS Activities • Assistance, outreach and education (public) –Technical consultations –Creating custom soil data/information products –Education and training • Support for NRCS activities –Conservation compliance (wetlands and HEL) –Conservation planning, agency initiatives • Roughly consistent 45-55 split in NRCS staff time nationwide based on the number of incidents – varies based on local needs
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- 10. TSS in the Future • Maintain balance between support for internal and external customers • Increase support for key agency initiatives • Soil health, climate resiliance, impacts of conservation practices • Soil science has a key role to play • Challenge: how to document assistance in these areas • Addressing needs of new customers • “High-level” users (e.g. modelers, DSS developers, precision ag consultants) • New users (e.g. urban residents, coastal zone) • Collaboration with partners – consistent messages • Need your feedback and suggestions 10
- 11. For more information on NRCS TSS Activities: Michael Robotham National Leader for TSS michael.robotham@wdc.usda.gov 202-720-5547
- 12. Questions ? USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer, and lender
Editor's Notes
- DFN: Activities that focus on supporting the use of the soils information Common TSS activities include: • Supporting conservation planning through compliance determinations and reviews (both HEL and wetlands), on-site assessments for resource inventory, practice design and practice implementation, quality assurance reviews, and the maintenance of reference documents, such as the relevant sections of the eFOTG; • Providing soils-related information and training to NRCS staff, NRCS partners, and the general public, including support for such youth programs as soil judging and envirothons; and • Supporting other agency programs and initiatives, including NRI, ecosite development, and soil health.
- The vast majority of the TSS support is provided by agency soil scientists located in state, area, and field offices. These scientists include State Soil Scientists, Assistant State Soil Scientists, and Resource Soil Scientists. TSS is also provided by MLRA Soil Survey office personnel (15% of FTE) Total of approximately 500 people nationwide: 10 national/regional level 50 State Soil Scientists (or equivalent) 75 Resource Soil Scientists (not equally distributed) 350+ SSD Soil Scientists (SSRs and MLRA SSOs)
- Notes: SSURGO is the official soils data for regulatory purposes; gSSURGO is a “rasterized” – 30m cell – version of SSURGO Covers 97% of all agricultural land in CONUS Gaps still exist largely on public lands in the Western states and in Alaska May want to define components and mapunits in the talk but there might not be sufficient time – do we want to include a definition in these notes? SSURGO contains estimated data aka “representative values”. Data in SSURGO is informed by measured values (both field and laboratory), but is not explicitly measured. Representative values are what the soil mapper believed best represented the entire soil component. “High” and “Low” values represent the “typical” range of the data in that component. Some preliminary analysis has shown that they low and the high values typically approximate +/- 2 standard deviations from the representative value (assuming the representative value to approximate the mean), but they were not populated on that basis. STATSGO2 Also official data – complete national coverage Estimated data – similar to SSURGO, but much less information for a given mapunit 1:250,000 is default national scale; 1:1,000,000 for Alaska National soil characterization database data contains measured values from the Kellogg Soil Survey Laboratory or cooperating university laboratories. Points sampled were “deliberate” or “opportunity” samples Very few were collected explicitly to identify the representative values for a given component Many were collected for other purposes Efforts are underway to “clean up” this database to improve geo-referencing of locations and update classification of pedons to the current version of Soil Taxonomy
- Illustration of products available via WSS. Soil Data Access site for advanced users – but I’m not sure that this is the appropriate audience.
- So, what does this mean – steady rise from FY2011-FY2015 (~10%/year) – but FY2016 back to FY2014 levels – don’t really know. Suspect it is levelling off at balance between staff time available and current workload. Distribution of activities (data not show) remains pretty consistent. Staffing levels are down. More work being done by others? Self-service? Private sector?
- Additional reminder that the State Soil Scientist is the key contact for TSS in their state. They can find out who their State Soil Scientist is (if they don’t already know) on the national NRCS web site.