Shifting Paradigms - Soil Survey 2026.

The Soil Survey program within USDA has been ongoing for over 100 years.  We have made huge strides and over 92% of the United States has been mapped.  We are however faced with the reality that budgets and the number of FTEs devoted to initial mapping are shrinking.  One estimate is that with the current FTEs with the Soil Science Division, USDA-NRCS that it would take 23 years to map the remaining unmapped areas.   Given the need for soils data by numerous partners and end users this presents a time line that is unacceptable.  A meeting of SSD leadership and federal partners to the NCSS was convened late in 2015.  The result of this meeting was an overarching plan to develop a soils inventory within the next 10 years.  This plan also considers updates and expanding current inventories to better address the needs of more users.  This presentation will outline the goals and challenges of Soil Survey 2026.