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Cropland Converted to Other Land Uses, 1992 - 1997
Description
This pie map shows to what land uses cropland
was converted between 1992 and 1997. The
diameter of the pies are proportional to the
acres of cropland converted in each state. The
slices of the pie indicate what percentage of
the lost cropland was converted to each land
use. Cropland includes both cultivated and non-
cultivated cropland. Developed land includes
urban and built-up areas and rural
transportation land. Other Farmland is any
farmland other than cropland, pastureland,
rangeland, or forest land. It includes
Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) land and land
used for farm buildings, corrals, pens,
feedlots, windbreaks, greenhouses, nurseries,
family gardens, poultry facilities, landing
strips, etc. The Other category includes barren
land, marshland, water bodies, and Federal
land. There were 19.7 million acres of land
converted.
Cautions for this Product:
This map does not show net loss of cropland.
Land converted from other land uses to cropland
is not accounted for.
Sources
Source:
National Resources Inventory, 1997
Distributor:
USDA-NRCS-RIAD
Reliability:
NRI sample data are generally reliable at the
95% confidence interval for state and certain
broad substate area analyses. Generally,
analyses that aggregate data points by smaller
geographic areas and/or more specific criteria
result in fewer data points for each aggregation
and therefore less reliable estimates. NRI maps
reflect national patterns rather than site-
specific information.
Layers
Aggregate Layer:
State
Other Layers Displayed:
Definitions
Barren land:
A Land Cover/Use category used to classify lands
with limited capacity to support life and has
less than 5 percent vegetative cover.
Vegetation, if present, is widely spaced (NRI-
87). Typically, the surface of barren land is
sand, rock, exposed subsoil, or salt affected
soils. Sub-categories include salt flats; sand
dunes; mud flats; beaches, bare exposed rock;
quarries, strip mines, gravel pits, and borrow
pits; river wash; oil wasteland; mixed-barren
lands; and other barren land. [NRI-97]
Conservation Reserve Program (CRP):
A Federal program established under the Food
Security Act of 1985 to assist private
landowners to convert highly erodible cropland
to vegetative cover for 10 years. [NMCSP]
Cropland:
A Land cover/use category that includes areas
used for the production of adapted crops for
harvest. Two subcategories of cropland are
recognized: cultivated and noncultivated.
Cultivated cropland comprises land in row crops
or close-grown crops and also other cultivated
cropland, for example, hayland or pastureland
that is in a rotation with row or close-grown
crops. Noncultivated cropland includes permanent
hayland and horticultural cropland. [NRI-97]
Federal land:
A land ownership class designating land that is
owned by the Federal Government. It does not
include, for example, trust lands administered
by the Bureau of Indian Affairs nor Tennessee
Valley Authority (TVA) land. No data are
collected for any year that land is in this
ownership. [NRI-97]
Land cover/use:
A term that includes categories of land cover
and categories of land use. Land cover is the
vegetation or other kind of material that covers
the land surface. Land use is the purpose of
human activity on the land; it is usually but
not always related to the land cover. The NRI
uses the term (land cover/use) to identify the
categories that account for all the surface area
in the United States [BS-1982; NRI-97]
Marshland:
A sub-category of the Land Cover/Use category
Other Rural Land described as a nonforested area
of land partially or intermittently covered with
water usually characterized by the presence of
monocotyledons, such as sedges and rushes.
These areas are usually in a wetland class and
are not placed in another NRI land cover/use
category such as rangeland or pastureland. [NRI-
97]
Pastureland and Native Pasture:
A Land Cover/Use category of land managed
primarily for the production of introduced or
native forage plants for livestock grazing.
Pastureland may consist of a single species in a
pure stand, a grass mixture or a grass-legume
mixture. Management usually consists of
cultural treatments-fertilization, weed control,
reseeding, or renovation and control of
grazing. (For the NRI, includes land that has a
vegetative cover of grasses, legumes, and/or
forbs, regardless of whether or not it is being
grazed by livestock.) [NRI-97]
Rangeland:
A Land cover/use category on which the climax or
potential plant cover is composed principally of
native grasses, grasslike plants, forbs or
shrubs suitable for grazing and browsing, and
introduced forage species that are managed like
rangeland. This would include areas where
introduced hardy and persistent grasses, such as
crested wheatgrass, are planted and such
practices as deferred grazing, burning,
chaining, and rotational grazing are used, with
little or no chemicals or fertilizer being
applied. Grasslands, savannas,
many wetlands, some deserts, and tundra are
considered to be rangeland. Certain communities
of low forbs and shrubs, such as mesquite,
chaparral, mountain shrub, and pinyon-juniper,
are also included as rangeland.
[NRI-97]
Rural transportation land:
A Land Cover/Use category which consists of all
highways, roads, railroads and associated rights-
of-way outside urban and built-up areas;
including private roads to farmsteads or ranch
headquarters, logging roads, and other private
roads, except field lanes. [NRI-97]
Urban and built-up areas:
A Land Cover/Use category consisting of
residential, industrial, commercial, and
institutional land; construction sites; public
administrative sites; railroad yards;
cemeteries; airports; golf courses; sanitary
landfills; sewage treatment plants; water
control structures and spillways; other land
used for such purposes; small parks (less than
10 acres) within urban and built-up areas; and
highways, railroads, and other transportation
facilities if they are surrounded by urban
areas. Also included are tracts of less than 10
acres that do not meet the above definition but
are completely surrounded by Urban and Built-up
land. Two size categories are recognized in the
NRI: (i) areas 0.25 to 10 acres, and (ii) areas
greater than 10 acres. [NRI-97]
Water body:
A type of (permanent open) water area which
includes ponds, lakes, reservoirs, bays or
gulfs, and estuaries. There are 3 size
categories: (1) less than 2 acres; (ii) 2-40
acres; and (iii) at least 40 acres. [NRI-97]
Product Information
Product ID:
5941
Production Date:
5/24/01
Product Type:
Map
For additional information
contact the Resources Inventory and Assessment Division.
Please include the Product ID you are inquiring about.
nri@wdc.usda.gov
or 1400 Independence Avenue SW - P.O. Box 2890 -
Washington D.C. 20013. If you use our analysis products,
please be aware of our disclaimer.
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