CEAP is a multi-agency effort to quantify the environmental effects of conservation practices and programs and develop the science base for managing the agricultural landscape for environmental quality. Project findings will be used to guide USDA conservation policy and program development and help conservationists, farmers and ranchers make more informed conservation decisions.
To download a list of specific conservation
practices and links to CEAP products
that inform those practices, click here.
Assessments in CEAP are carried out at national, regional and watershed scales on cropland, grazing lands, wetlands and for wildlife. The three principal components of CEAP—the national assessments, the watershed assessment studies, and the bibliographies and literature reviews— contribute to building the science base for conservation. That process includes research, modeling, assessment, monitoring and data collection, outreach, and extension education. Focus is being given to translating CEAP science into practice.
CEAP Vision... Enhanced natural resources and healthier ecosystems through improved conservation effectiveness and better management of agricultural landscapes.
CEAP Goal... To improve efficacy of conservation practices and programs by quantifying conservation effects and providing the science and education base needed to enrich conservation planning, implementation, management decisions, and policy.
. . . More about CEAP
What's New
- Wetlands: Estimating the Effects of Wetland Conservation Practices in Croplands: Approaches for Modeling in the CEAP-Cropland Assessment, April 2018 (PDF; 0.4 MB)
- Watersheds and Cropland: Harmful Algal Blooms and Hypoxia in the United States: A Report on Interagency Progress and Implementation, March 2018 (PDF; 2 MB) [CEAP contributed to this report]
- Wildlife: Assessing Avian Response to NRCS Conservation Programs Targeting Early-successional Habitats in the Appalachian Mountains and Western Great Lakes Regions, February 2018 (PDF; 4.4 MB)
- Wildlife: Conservation Insight—Small Forest Openings Support Shrubland Birds and Native Bees in the Northeast, December 2017 (PDF; 2.5 MB)
- Cropland: CEAP-1 Summary Reports on sediment loss, pesticide loss, phosphorus loss, and nitrogen loss, November 2017 (4 PDF files)
- Cropland: Conservation Practice Adoption on Cultivated Cropland Acres: Effects on Instream Nutrient and Sediment Dynamics and Delivery in Western Lake Erie Basin, 2003-06 and 2012, October 2017 (PDF; 2.3 MB)
- Wetlands: Science Note—Role of Prior Converted Croplands on Nitrate Processing in Mid-Atlantic Agricultural Landscapes, September 2017 (PDF; 1.6 MB)
- Wetlands: Conservation Insight—USDA Conservation Programs and Pesticides in Great Plains Depressional Wetlands—Texas to North Dakota, May 2017 (PDF; 0.6 MB)
- Grazing Lands: Evaluation of Ecological Site Classes and Community Classes for Regional Scale Modeling of Conservation Effects on Grazing Lands, April 2017: MLRA 67B (PDF; 2.1 MB); MLRA 69 (PDF; 1.8 MB); MLRA 77E (PDF; 1.4 MB)
- Grazing Lands: Process-based Simulation of Prairie Growth. Zilverberg et al., Ecological Modelling, March 2017 (PDF; 2.1 MB)
- Wildlife: Conservation Insight—Conservation Practices Benefit Priority Birds in the Intermountain West, March 2017 (PDF; 2.6 MB)
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A sampling and modeling approach using data from representative crop fields, from the National Resources Inventory, and farmer surveys to estimate impacts of conservation practices on the environment. |
An effort to develop a collaborative foundation that facilitates the production and delivery of scientific data to inform conservation decisions affecting wetland ecosystems and the services they provide. |
A cooperative effort with the fish and wildlife conservation community involving multiple regional assessments that document habitat condition and biological response to conservation practices and programs at multiple spatial scales. |
An effort designed to quantify the environmental effects of conservation practices on non-Federal grazing lands in the United States. |
Forty-two CEAP watershed studies have been initiated to provide in-depth analysis and quantification of the measurable effects of conservation practices at the watershed scale and enhance our understanding of the effects of conservation in the biophysical setting of a watershed.
These studies are being conducted and/or supported by USDA's Agricultural Research Service, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and Natural Resources Conservation Service. Future efforts will include translating this science into practice to better manage agricultural landscapes.
Current literature on conservation programs that documents what is known and not known about the environmental benefits of conservation practices and programs for cropland, fish and wildlife, wetlands, and grazing lands. The National Agricultural Library maintains dynamic bibliographies cataloging studies from 2003 to the present.
Publications
A full listing of all CEAP-related documents published to date.
Review CEAP documents by region and assessment via interactive map.
