Remote Sensing Derived Topsoil and Agricultural Economic Losses, Midwestern USA

Overview

Description

This dataset provides estimates of topsoil loss and economic loss associated with decreased crop productivity resulting from topsoil loss at county- and state-levels across the Corn Belt region of the Midwestern USA. Intermediate products used to derive topsoil loss are provided and include 4 m gridded estimates of study sites elevation, curvature, slope, soil organic carbon index (SOCI), and the probability of exposed B-horizon soil. Topsoil loss at the county- and state-levels was derived from analyses of agricultural land at selected sites across the study area. From WorldView imagery, 759 fields were identified that had exposed bare soil (210 km2) and were grouped into 28 sites. Gridded estimates of the SOCI and of the probability of exposed B-horizon soil were determined for each field within the sites. Topography measures, including elevation (m), curvature (m-1), and slope (deg), were extracted over the entire study area from LiDAR-derived digital elevation models at a 4 m resolution acquired from 2003-2018. Within each of the 28 study sites, the SOCI and topographic curvature values were extracted from co-located pixels. Topsoil loss was estimated from the relationship between subsoil exposure and topography and averaged across each site.The relationship between topsoil loss and topographic curvature was used to up-scale and predict topsoil and economic losses at the county and state-levels across the entire 375,000 km2 study area. The data have been used to demonstrate a robust and scalable method for estimating the magnitude of erosion in agricultural landscapes.

Science Keywords

Data Use and Citation

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