United States Department of Agriculture
Natural Resources Conservation Service
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Welcome to the NRCS Soils Website.

“Helping People Understand Soils”

Soils is part of the National Cooperative Soil Survey, an effort of Federal and State agencies, universities, and professional societies to deliver science-based soil information.

Soil Extent Mapping (SEM) Tool Upgrade

The Soil Extent Mapping (SEM) Tool has been upgraded to included acreage estimates for all series components available from a June 2007 snapshot of the Soil Data Mart. This upgrade also provides new wildcard soil series query, directed taxonomic query, and wildcard taxonomic query capabilities. The new taxonomic query acreage reports provide state level summaries.

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Screen capture from MLRA Explorer.

New Mapping Tool Makes Things Easy

MLRA Explorer A new web-based mapping tool that provides the user with the ability to search by Major Land Resource Areas (MLRA) and Land Resource Areas (LRR) using a variety of geographic and attribute questions that create customized maps of narrative descriptions and photos. It also provides the user with the ability to print and/or export specific subsets of the USDA Agriculture Handbook 296.

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Image from Web Soil Survey homepage.

Introducing Web Soil Survey 2.0

Web Soil Survey is now better than ever! Originally launched in August 2005, the improved and enhanced version is now available online. Based on user comments, new features and enhancements have been developed to make the program more responsive to its growing customer base. Some new features include a location marker, floating map unit descriptions, transparency layers, a topographic map layer, and the ability to create custom soil resource reports.

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Photo of soil scientists being trained in the field.

NCSS Training Website

A website has been developed to assist National Cooperative Soil Survey (NCSS) soil scientists and their supervisors in identifying training opportunities and resources. Links are provided for schedules, course descriptions, job aids to supplement training, and other helpful topics. GIS-related training includes: (1) GIS fundamentals for all soil scientists; (2) a recommended sequence of GIS-related training, especially for newly hired soil scientists; and (3) training for employees of all soil survey-related offices.

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The Natural Resources Conservation Service provides leadership in a partnership effort to help people conserve, maintain, and improve our natural resources and environment.

Last Modified: 04/11/2008