NRCS and its future role

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has undergone significant organizational changes over the last two years. The Soil Survey Program has been substantially affected by these changes. The agency has shifted its focus to four major areas. The first emphasizes holistic conservation planning including locally led community level scales as well as the traditional individual farm and ranch planning. The second is natural resource inventories, including soil survey. The third is natural resource assessment, and the fourth is conservation technical assistance. USDA conservation programs have been consolidated and streamlined in order to provide local communities with flexible tools to address locally developed priorities. The Soil Survey Program has reorganized along Major Land Resource Area (MLRA) boundaries, and shifted its emphasis to acquisition, development, interpretation and distribution of soil information in electronic format. These changes, over time, will result in improved data quality. Quality will improve first by the elimination of "fault-lines" or illogical changes in data along state, county and other political boundaries. Second by the electronic calculation, validation and verification of data, and third by inclusion of more precise data with documented reliability. Data, interpretations and publications will be locally developed, but be available over the world wide web.