Pastureland Conservation Effects Assessment Project: Status and expected outcomes

Abstract

T he Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP) is a multiagency scientific effort to quantify environmental outcomes of conservation practices applied to private agricultural lands. The program is anticipated to help shape future conservation policies, programs, and practices. The integrated landscape approach will focus on enhanced ecological resilience and sustainable agricultural production, both of which are essential to maintaining livelihoods and meeting global food needs (Nowak and Schnepf 2010). Principal components of CEAP include (1) detailed syntheses of scientific conservation literature; (2) a national assessment of conservation effects on ecosystem services; and (3) detailed investigations of conservation practices at various scales, including paddock, landscape, and water-shed levels. The CEAP effort on grazing lands began in rangeland in 2006 (Weltz et al. 2008) with a synthesis of the scientific literature on key rangeland conservation practices (Briske forthcoming). A CEAP effort on pastureland, primarily in the eastern and central United States, began in 2008. A literature synthesis documenting the science behind key conservation practices (Nelson forthcoming) revealed that scientific support exists for most conservation practices on pastureland, but critical knowledge, data, and technology gaps remain, including the following: