Impact Assessment of Climate and Soil Variability on Land Use Changes in Nebraska and South Dakota.

A study was conducted in South Dakota and Nebraska to assess the impact of climate change on long-term agricultural sustainability.  Changes in land management have occurred in recent history, such as the conversion of grasslands to annual crops or grassland and annual crops to roads and buildings.  Land-use changes may impact long-term sustainability. The studies objective was to estimate land use change in South Dakota and Nebraska from 2006 to 2014 South Dakota was separated into 9 reporting districts and Nebraska was separated into 8 reporting districts.  Within each district and year (2006, 2012, and 2014), land use was identified at 1600 random selected points.  High-resolution remote sensing information (resolution < 2 m) was used to visually separate land-use practices into croplands, grasslands, water, habitat, and non-ag (roads or structures).   From 2006 to 2014, there was an increase of 1,328,000 acres of cropland in South Dakota. This resulted in a 981,000, 281,000 and 239,000 acre loss in grassland, Habitat and NonAg respectively. Similar land-use changes occurred in Nebraska, where the amount of cropland increased 832,199 acres.  These increases were attributed to 815,153 and 73,009 acres of grassland and habitat that were converted to croplands, respectively. These changes were attributed to many factors including higher temperatures and increased rainfall.