Duration: 10/01/2024 to 09/30/2029

Administrative Advisor(s):

NIFA Reps:

Non-Technical Summary

NCERA-3 coordinates university research, teaching, and extension related to National Cooperative Soil Survey (NCSS) across the north central region and beyond. This committee coordinates and makes recommendations on designing, reviewing, and testing procedures for developing soil survey information (SSI). NCERA-3 provides a forum for contributing to the scientific foundation guiding collection of SSI and its interpretation. It provides a mechanism for evaluating and refining NCSS directives to suit local and state needs. NCERA-3 works directly with the National Soil Interpretations and Advisory Group (NSIAG), the national body responsible for the SSI system, as the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service adjusts to meet emerging needs. The SSI is the most detailed and comprehensive natural resource database in the world. It is increasingly being used for a diverse array of applications that go well beyond its traditional use as a tool for agricultural planning and management. It follows that this amplification of SSI introduces a broad array of new end-users (e.g., climate modelers, urban planners).

The goals of NCERA-3 are to Identify and prioritize common needs for soil-landscape research, education, and outreach (REO) in the North Central Region, refine systems for assessing soil health and soil resilience, and improve scientific understanding of soil landscape systems across multiple spatial scales.

NCERA-3 serves the NCSS community, the many users of SSI, and helps inform users of the potential and limitations of SSI.

NCERA-3 activities include regular communications, symposia at National meetings, and representation on national boards working on maintenance and improvement of SSI.

Statement of Issues and Justification

The NCERA-3 committee consists of pedologists from the North Central agricultural experiment stations (AES), other universities, and an administrative advisor. NCERA-3 is an essential and strategically distinctive partner in the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service National Cooperative Soil Survey (NCSS). The NCSS includes federal, state, university and local partners with a public mandate for identification, inventory, and management of soil resources and their use. These partners include university pedologists from each (AES) in the nation; representatives from the USDA: NRCS, Forest Service, and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), The United States Department of Interior (USDI), Bureau of Land Management, and state and local agriculture and/or natural resource agencies. The NCERA-3 committee is an essential component for coordinating NCSS activities in the North Central Region (NCR). The NCERA-3 Committee members serve on national advisory boards and committees to the NRCS. The boards and committees are charged with reviewing policies and making recommendations to improve procedures in the soil survey program, identifying and coordinating important soil and water research and education efforts, developing soil/water interpretive guidelines, and related activities. Spatio-temporal variability of soil-landscape-hydrological systems transgress political boundaries and require coordinated regional/national approaches to fully address the NCSS public mandate.

The university representatives are responsible for coordinating research, teaching, and extension responsibilities with NCSS in their representative states. This committee coordinates and makes recommendations on designing, reviewing, and testing procedures and practices for developing soil survey information (SSI). Completion of most of the baseline soil mapping in the NCR has allowed participating scientists to focus on refining and adapting the assembled SSI to meet a spectrum of natural resource planning and management needs at diverse spatial scales. In response to societal needs, the NRCS has appointed a national committee to identify key soil/water/landscape interpretations important to sustaining these finite resources. The NCERA-3 committee works directly with this group, the National Soil Interpretations and Advisory Group (NSIAG) as NRCS adjusts its historical mission and culture to meet emerging needs. The SSI is the most detailed and comprehensive natural resource database in the world, including both tabular and spatial data. It is increasingly being used for a diverse array of applications that extend well beyond its traditional use as a tool for agricultural planning and management. It is evident that this amplification of SSI introduces a broad array of new end-users (e.g., climate modelers, urban planners).

Most non-soil science SSI users have minimal knowledge of the SSI limitations, scale, and potentials. Educating collaborators and using modern technologies such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing is extremely important. If broad societal concerns about overlapping issues such as resource sustainability, global climate change, soil quality, biodiversity, bioenergy and environmental protection are to be met, pedologists must play a key role. The SSI needs to be formulated in a sufficiently robust and reliable manner to meet existing and emerging applications. The NCSS is placing more emphasis on improving the scientific basis and extrapolative utility of soil interpretations, and developing improved systems for storage, retrieval, analysis, and display/dissemination of SSI. These areas of emphasis draw heavily on the scientific and technical expertise that university cooperators provide to the NCSS.

NCERA-3 members provide important contributions to improvements and updates to Soil Taxonomy, the national soil classification system, and to international efforts to standardize and improve soil classification. Members of the NCERA-3 committee serve on the Regional Soil Taxonomy review committee which evaluates proposed modifications to Soil Taxonomy including those developed by international working committees and a Soil Science Society of America committee working on fundamental changes to Soil Taxonomy.

The broad regional and national scope of NCERA3 members allows for strong collaborative efforts. Soil-landscape relationships, soil health, and dynamic soil properties change at local, regional, and global scales. Coordination of research projects and data quality through NCERA3 members allows the group to better understand these relationships and how they vary between states and regions. This enhances the ability of University Pedologists and NRCS collaborators to give user groups (farmers, land managers, restoration ecologists, etc.) better information for their localities.

Representatives from NCERA-3 serve on NCSS work planning boards and national committees and statewide and regional training events. These various committee linkages provide a network for evaluating soil survey technology in terms of its suitability for use in solution of current and anticipated land use problems. SSI is a major mechanism for technology transfer of research findings developed at AES and other research facilities. Policies of the NCSS are evaluated by the NCERA-3 with respect to their impact on land use.

In summary, NCERA-3 provides a forum for contributing to the scientific foundation that guides collection of SSI and its interpretation and extrapolation. It provides a mechanism for evaluating and refining NCSS directives to suit local and state needs. As numbers of soil scientists and supporting resources have declined, the importance of a regional committee has increased. As the need for truly collaborative multidisciplinary work is being recognized and encouraged, the science that focuses on the interface between the biotic and abiotic processes in the landscape (pedology) is impaired. Therefore, pedologists must develop new linkages with other disciplines (including sociologists, ecologists, economists, engineers, geologists, hydrologists and urban planners) that work on and with the soil landscape.

Objectives

Procedures and Activities

Objective 1 

1. Maintain communication (vialist-serve, local-national meetings, teleconferences, REO products, workshops) amongst NCERA-3 committee members, other pedologists, stakeholders, and USDA-NRCS regional and state office staff.
2. Coordinate activities and set priorities among the universities within the National Cooperative Soil Survey (NCSS), with increasing emphasis on data quality and interpretations.
3. Designate NCERA-3 representation on NCSS committees and relay/evaluate national recommendations and initiatives to pertinent groups throughout the region.
4. Provide Pedological expertise to other regional and national groups through cross-membership and unique specializations within NCERA3 members. Members of NCERA3 currently serve on multistate research committees, including NC1178 and NE1938. Like NCERA3, these groups have expanded beyond the original region and contain University members from across most of the country.

NCERA-3 is the only regional committee with a specific focus on pedology and its application to the NCSS and some of its activities and impacts extend well beyond the region (e.g., Soil Explorer Project).

Objective 2 

1. Develop standards for measuring and interpreting dynamic soil properties.
2. Investigate effects of environmental change and soil management on soil morphology, and enhance sensitivity of soil classification and mapping systems to soil change.
3. Contribute to programs to develop spatial and attribute databases for dynamic soil properties, soil resilience, and soil health.
4. Engage with stakeholders in the soil health arena to enhance assessment and interpretation of soil health and soil quality.
5. Utilize multi-member projects and reviews to provide unified soil-landscape relationship information, or regionally idealized interpretations as best suited for user groups.

Active research projects include studies on dynamic changes in mine soils (IL) and providing a pedological framework for soil health methodologies (IL, OH, MN) as well as active participation of NCERA-3 members in related workshops.

Objective 3

1. Research and develop applications for broad-scale soil-landscape data delivery via Soil Explorer or similar platforms.
2. Apply new technologies in both proximal and remote sensing to enhance fine-scale soil information collection and delivery.
3. Develop basic and applied research and outreach programming on the use and limitations of geospatial soil data products such as SSURGO, POLARIS, and SoilGrids.
4. Focus and pool regional resources for applications including precision agriculture, wetland delineations, and land-surface modelling.
   
   The Soil Explorer project involves all NCERA-3 participants, who are also engaged in a variety of projects using proximal and fine-scale remote sensing techniques.

Expected Outcomes and Impacts

Projected Participation

View Appendix E: Participation

Educational Plan

1. Produce educational soil interpretation materials for various end users, including agronomic and silvicultural, on-site waste treatment and dispersal, wetland identification, and soil erosion control and tillage management, and enhance the understanding the temporal and spatially variable attributes of soil systems in these user groups. These guides will explain cause-and-effect dynamics as well as providing information for interpretations
2. Produce accessible and engaging thematic maps on the Soil Explorer platform, which can be utilized for teaching and research purposes at multiple educational levels.
3. Develop educational materials for use in grades K-12 with the intention of making science more relevant and applicable, interesting and accessible to children and their teachers.
4. Continue to produce soil maps at a variety of scales and continue to provide information to ancillary agencies (NRCS and state groups such as Departments of Natural Resources and Departments of Conservation) for use in their educational outreach programs.

Organization/Governance

Organization/Governance The committee will adopt the multistate standard governance with the election of a chair, a chair-elect, and a secretary. All officers elected will serve two-year terms to provide continuity. Efforts are underway to recruit members from other Land Grant Universities within the NCR.

Literature Cited

Isee Network (2015 – 2018). Soil Explorer website. Online at http://SoilExplorer.net. Accessed Oct. 4, 2018.

Attachments

Land Grant Participating States/Institutions

IA, IL, IN, KS, MI, NE, OH, SD, WV

Non Land Grant Participating States/Institutions

Texas Tech University