Quantifying the impacts of the Conservation Effects Assessment Project watershed assessments: The first fifteen years

Abstract

T he United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) spends about US$6 billion each year on agricultural conservation programs to help producers and landowners implement conservation practices (CPs) and systems on their land. In 2003, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) entered into partnership with USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS), USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), other federal agencies, and many external partners to create the Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP). The goal of CEAP is to quantify the environmental effects of CPs and programs and develop the science base for managing the agricultural landscape for environmental quality (Mausbach and Dedrick 2004; Duriancik et al. 2008). Conservation effects are assessed at national, regional, and watershed scales on cropland, grazing lands, wetlands, and for wildlife. As part of these efforts, CEAP initiated the Watershed Assessment Studies (WAS) component …