Recent central U.S. land use trends indicate large shifts from native or restored grasslands towards increased row crop cultivation. Research to-date indicates contemporary land use changes are complex, with multifaceted drivers and relationships across multiple scales. This research has also been used to promote ongoing soil health agendas employed by U.S. organizations. However, as the cultivated footprint continues to expand, concerns over soil erosion, watershed runoff volumes, and water quality have likewise escalated. This is particularly true in the northern and western Great Plains, where soil and climate characteristics limit row crop productive potential. Watershed-level impacts of this type of land use change has been less studied than regional or farm level efforts. We identified multiple cases documenting soil and water externalities (i.e., unintended consequences of land use that adversely impacts other parties; e.g., soil erosion, watershed hydrological changes, and total suspended solids in streams) at watershed and landscape scales using a variety of data sources, including: USDA-NASS�s Cropland Data Layer, watershed model generated data, NASA satellite imagery, state conservation agency databases, and local observations. In general, increases in these externalities occurred in counties with recent land use shifts away from grassland dominated landscapes to increased cultivated footprints since the mid-2000s. By documenting these cases, our project aims to promote the adoption of soil potential and soil risk (defined by local topographic and climate characteristics) into contemporary soil health initiatives, as this should aid in avoiding increased soil and water externalities while continuing to meet the growing societal needs from agriculture.
Oral presentation and poster titles, abstracts, and authors from the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meetings and Tradeshows, from 2013 forward.