The National Cooperative Soil Survey Program (NCSS) in the United States is a nationwide partnership of federal, regional, state, and local agencies and institutions. This partnership works together to cooperatively investigate, inventory, document, classify, and interpret soils and to disseminate, publish, and promote the use of information about the soils of the United States and its trust territories. The activities of the NCSS are carried out on national, regional, and state levels.
Overview
The National Cooperative Soil Survey Program (NCSS) is a partnership led by the United States Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service of Federal land management agencies, state agricultural experiment stations, counties, conservation districts, and other special-purpose districts that provide soil survey information necessary for understanding, managing, conserving and sustaining the nation's soil resources.
It seeks to inventory soil resources as a basis for determining land capabilities and needed conservation treatments, to provide soil information to the public (primarily through maps), and to provide technical support to those who use soil information. More than 90% of private lands have been mapped. In FY2001, maps were prepared or updated on , including 25 counties or areas for the first time.
History
While the National Cooperative Soil Survey has involved multiple partners since its inception in 1896, Federal responsibility for coordinating partner efforts has resided within the USDA. However, soil survey responsibilities have moved several times within the USDA: 1894 Division of Agricultural Soil within the USDA Weather Bureau. 1899 Name changed to Division of Soils. 1901 Division moved up in status to Bureau of Soils. 1927 Merged with the Bureau of Chemistry, forming the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils. 1938 Soils unit transferred to the Bureau of Plant Industry. 1942 Changed name to Bureau of Plant Industry, Soils, and Agricultural Engineering, becoming part of the Agricultural Research Administration. 1952 Soil survey program transferred to the Soil Conservation Service (SCS). 1994 Name changed to Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Early history
The original federal authority for the soil survey of the United States is contained in the record of the 53rd Congress, chapter 169, Agricultural Appropriations Act of 1896.
Milton Whitney was the first Chief of the Division of Agricultural Soil. The division was created under the USDA Weather Bureau in 1894, but, with the inception of National Cooperative Soil Survey efforts, became the Division of Soils as an independent division within the Department of Agriculture. The early vision of soil survey was a survey that combined geography with soil chemistry. The men conducting the surveys were geologists or chemists; none had training in agronomy.
On May 3, 1899, with an appropriation of $16,000 Whitney began field operations. In four separate soil surveys about were mapped that first year. Cecil County, Maryland, and Connecticut Valley, Connecticut, concentrated on tobacco lands. Survey of the Salt Lake Valley of Utah and the Pecos River Valley of New Mexico concentrated on alkali soil areas where irrigation and land reclamation projects were planned. Soil surveys focused on cropland or interpretations for cropland until the 1970s when the scope of the NCSS was expanded to focus on urban lands.
Of the four survey areas initiated in 1899, three were published the next year. These first surveys cost about 3/10ths of a cent per acre. , soil surveys cost about $3/acre.
Soil texture was the main differentiating soil characteristic used in the early survey process. Soil series were soon to follow as groupings of soil types. By 1906 Miami soil series included 16 soil types from the glaciated regions and Norfolk series included 12 soil types from the coastal plains. Several other characteristics were added by that time. They were soil color, organic content, soil structure, drainage, erodibility, and nature of subsoil. Soil provinces were established and soil series were confined to their area. Series at first were identified where the soils formed from the same accumulated parent material: glaciated, wind blown, alluvial etc.
Geological Survey maps were generally unavailable and early soil surveyors used the plane table and alidade to develop their own base maps. Work for soil surveys was done at a mapping scale 1 inch to the mile. Scale is pretty well standardized at 1:12000 or 1:24000. Six different scales have been used in published soil surveys.
