Advances in Precision Conservation

 

Jorge A. Delgado* and Joseph K. Berry**

 

 

…book chapter in Advances in Agronomy edited by Donald L. Sparks,

volume 98, chapter 1, pages 1-44, Elsevier publishers, 2008. 

 

*USDA-ARS, Soil Plant Nutrient Research Unit, Fort Collins, Colorado 80526

**Berry and Associates, Spatial Information Systems, Fort Collins, Colorado 80525

 

 

Contact Jorge Delgado at Jorge.Delgado@ARS.USDA.GOV for a reprint of this chapter.

 

Links to other papers on this topic are posted at www.innovativegis.com/basis/Papers/Online_Papers.htm.

______________________________

 

Contents

 

Topic

Page

1. Introduction

2

2. Geospatial Technologies

4

3. Identifying Spatial Patterns and Relationships

9

4. Field Level Flows

12

   4.1. Variable erosion and transport (flows of gases, nutrients, and water)

12

   4.2. Precision conservation for management of flows

16

5. Connection of Field with Off-Site Transport

17

   5.1. Variable flows from field to nonfarm areas

17

   5.2. Precision conservation buffers and riparian zones

20

6. Watershed Scale Considerations

22

   6.1. Variable hydrology

22

   6.2. Models and tools

22

   6.3. Precision conservation at a watershed scale

24

7. Current Applications and Trends

28

8. Summary and Conclusions

39

References

39

 

Population growth is expected to increase, and the world population is projected to reach 10 billion by 2050, which decreases the per capita arable land. More intensive agricultural production will have to meet the increasing food demands for this increasing population, especially because of an increasing demand for land area to be used for biofuels. These increases in intensive production agriculture will have to be accomplished amid the expected environmental changes attributed to Global Warming. During the next four decades, soil and water conservation scientists will encounter some of their greatest challenges to maintain sustainability of agricultural systems stressed by increasing food and biofuels demands and Global Warming. We propose that Precision Conservation will be needed to support parallel increases in soil and water conservation practices that will contribute to sustainability of these very intensively-managed systems while contributing to a parallel increase in conservation of natural areas.  The original definition of Precision Conservation is technologically based, requiring the integration of a set of spatial technologies such as global positioning systems (GPS), remote sensing (RS), and geographic information systems (GIS) and the ability to analyze spatial relationships within and among mapped data according to three broad categories: surface modeling, spatial data mining, and map analysis. In this paper, we are refining the definition as follows: Precision Conservation is technologically based, requiring the integration of one or more spatial technologies such as GPS, RS, and GIS and the ability to analyze spatial relationships within and among mapped data according to three broad categories: surface modeling, spatial data mining, and map analysis. We propose that Precision Conservation will be a key science that will contribute to the sustainability of intensive agricultural systems by helping us to analyze spatial and temporal relationships for a better understanding of agricultural and natural systems. These technologies will help us to connect the flows across the landscape, better enabling us to evaluate how we can implement the best viable management and conservation practices across intensive agricultural systems and natural areas to improve soil and water conservation.