Building Digital Soil Mapping Capacity in the Natural Resources Conservation Service: Mojave Desert Operational Initiative

Abstract

The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), within the context of the U.S. National Cooperative Soil Survey (NCSS), is working to integrate digital soil mapping methods with existing soil survey procedures. As this effort moves forward, it must address technological, managerial, and political challenges. To better understand these challenges and potential solutions, NRCS is establishing Digital Soil Mapping Operational Initiatives. These projects aim to demonstrate the utility of digital soil mapping in a production setting, provide training to soil scientists in digital soil mapping methods, contribute to completion of the initial soil survey or update of existing surveys, develop detailed instructions for implementing digital soil mapping methods, provide useful soil information products to complement existing soil survey data, and document methods and results. The first Operational Initiative was initiated at the Victorville, California Major Land Resource Area (MLRA) Soil Survey Office (SSO), which is responsible for the soil survey of Mojave Desert region. The immediate focus of this office is completing the initial soil survey for Joshua Tree National Park and adjacent private lands. Under the operational initiative umbrella, detailed digital data sets including IFSAR digital elevation models and an ASTER mosaic have been compiled. Derivatives from these and other data sets are being used to stratify the project area for sampling and modeling, and as inputs into continuous soil property predictive models. Model outputs will be used to develop Soil Survey Geographic (SSURGO) data products. Technical support for this project is provided by digital soil mapping soil scientists at the MLRA SSO the California State Office, and the National Geospatial Development Center, as well as other NRCS staff and NCSS cooperators.