Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

USDA Insight of the Month Feature (April)

Questions and answers with Jason Nemecek (National Soil Data Applications Scientist)

Man looking at two computer monitors displaying different pages of the Lab Data Mart website.

Data Leadership Spotlight: Jason Nemecek

What agency/organization are you a part of?

Natural Resources Conservation Service – Soils and Plants Science Division

Years with USDA

22

What is your role at USDA?

Since the early days of the Soil Conservation Service after the Dust Bowl, our agency has been developing and using soils information to help get conservation on the ground. Soils are the foundation of our food system and agricultural viability across the country, as well as key to climate adaptation for our producers. Now, with modern technology, we can expand and automate the delivery of soil information for USDA internal and external customers. My role is the National Soil Data Applications Scientist and National Technical Soil Leader for Conservation, which means I help modernize the delivery of soil information with automation, tools, and systems such as the Conservation Assessment Ranking Tool (CART) and the Dynamic Soils (DS) Hub.

What is your background working with data?

I began working with data as a soil scientist in the field as part of a vast data collection and delivery system that produces the Soil Survey Geographic (SSURGO) database. My team collected, documented, and correlated data for this national soil resource inventory that is a National Geospatial Data Asset (NGDA). I then became a State Soil Scientist, overseeing the soil scientists performing this work in Wisconsin. In this position, I saw that need to automate processes and building databases to help my staff be efficient and assist our customers. 

I also participated in national technical teams to automate conservation data systems and developed soil data automation services for the NRCS conservation planning applications. This development of the Conservation Assessment Ranking Tool (CART, more on this below) was a major data innovation in the agency that provided a vast amount of soil-based decision-support into new technology.

I then accepted a position as the National Soil Data Application Scientist and Product Owner of the Dynamic Soils Hub. The DS Hub will enable high-performance geospatial modeling and terrain analysis – what soil scientists need to unleash the treasure trove of data we have been collecting and curating for 120 years. Being a Product Owner of an innovative project like this has been an incredible challenge with lots of rewards and growth opportunities. 

In what ways do you see USDA’s data community changing in the future? What has made the biggest impact on the community so far?

USDA’s data community will become more and more geocentric. Soils, landscapes, and agriculture are fundamentally geographic, and place based. A geospatial approach will tap the absolute best in our vast collection of data assets. We will also embrace the Geospatial Data Act of 2018 as an opportunity to rapidly advance the Department’s data management mindset, much like the soil scientists have been doing for 100 years. 

The biggest impact on the community so far has been improved feasibility for geospatial analysis. USDA’s geospatial scientists like soil scientists have been waiting a long time for technology to catch up to what they need, and the future looks bright.

What is your favorite data-related success story?

Developing soils information products into Conservation Desktop (CD) and Conservation Assessment Ranking Tool (CART). 

The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) provides technical and financial assistance to support the implementation of conservation activities on private lands. Authorized funding for conservation financial assistance continues to grow. However, agency staffing remains has remained steady for the past several years. This combination of increasing workload and level staffing has provided a powerful incentive to explore avenues to increase efficiency and continue to provide high quality customer service. In addition, internal audits have shown that this increased workload is contributing to a decrease in consistency across the nation. 

Concurrently, the increasing availability of geospatially referenced natural resource data (e.g., soil, climate, vegetation) and the expansion of computing resources and web services provide the opportunity to get more data into the hands of field-based planners to help support and inform their discussions with landowners. Through the development of CART, NRCS has been joining the wealth of geospatially referenced data with site-specific information provided by the landowner within a decision support framework. This computer-based tool will assist NRCS conservation planners to identify the most likely resource concerns associated with the landscape and farm operation and the suite of potentially applicable conservation practices. This information will help agency staff to work more efficiently and effectively with landowners to determine the most appropriate mix of conservation activities that will meet landowner objectives while addressing the relevant natural resource concerns. This informed interaction has led to wider acceptance of conservation planning recommendations and increased adoption of conservation management practices on the ground. 

With the advent of CART, we had the challenge and opportunity to rapidly accelerate soil data delivery into the conservation planning and ranking process. Many of our soil interpretations and the methods we use to create them fit well with the concepts of resource concerns on a field and the limitations or assumptions that CART uses.

There is also a module in Conservation Desktop that conservationists use in the pre-planning process working with producers on their land. They can run scenarios and help scope the conservation plan and the options for the producers based on their soils and land capabilities and limitations.

One new tool that we developed for the conservation planners is the Nutrient Sensitive Areas Analysis - Soil Sensitivity (Nutrient Runoff) pre-planning tool. This model provides a science-based methodology, a tool and visualization for the conservationists to use with clients in Conservation Desktop. Conservationists can use this pre-planning tool and map to assist clients with a plan to reduce nutrient runoff from their operations. Conservation planners will be able to select practices and fields to run the sensitivity analysis to help with planning alternatives. Results of the sensitivity analysis will be stored for future use within the CART assessment and ranking process. The Conservation Products module will retrieve the results and develop a map and report and to provide to the client with information for planning practices on their operation.    

What is one accomplishment from the last fiscal year you are excited to build off of in FY23?

Working with USDA Office of the Chief Information Office (OCIO), we achieved a critical milestone in the development of the Dynamic Soils Hub (DS Hub) project to build out the innovative architecture for soil geospatial modeling. The purpose of the DS Hub is to provide a platform and data tools for use by soil scientists to enable high-performance geospatial modeling and terrain analysis…just what soil scientists need to effectively use the tremendous array of data they have been collecting and curating for over 120 years.

The DS Hub is an innovative, high-end, geospatial data user interface that specializes in unique terrain analysis enables users to build new data products from a wide variety of existing data sets. Unlike the current tools and workflows, DS Hub enables no-code processing of large volumes of data for geospatial modeling, allows modelers to collaborate on projects, share data and experiments, and produce scientific models and datasets. The DS Hub expands USDA capacity to model and report on soil properties that change with conservation management. It is focused on rapidly responding to customer requests for science-based soil property data at the Deputy Chief, Chief, and Undersecretary levels. It will empower the collection, storage, and delivery of data related to dynamic soil properties and conservation management. The DS Hub will link soil and conservation databases, providing the ability to assess environmental benefits in conservation programs by accessing otherwise siloed data and models across Agency divisions, and expanding USDA capacity to model and report on soil properties that change with conservation management on a human time scale.

Your message to folks interested in deepening their relationship with data. 

USDA has a vast collection of untapped data resources that our passionate experts can build on with the right tools and technology designed for them. 

We have the best organizational structure and delivery system in all the public and private sector, and one of the best missions in all of government: “helping people help the land”. It is an exciting time to be with NRCS as we are making excellent progress toward achieving our vision of once again becoming the best technical, science-based, planning organization across the land.