The first five years of the Conservation Effects Assessment Project

Authors

Lisa F. Duriancik, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
Dale Bucks, USDA Agricultural Research Service
James P. Dobrowolski, USDA Cooperative State Research
Tom Drewes, NRCS
S. Diane Eckles, NRCS
Leonard Jolley, NRCS
Robert L. Kellogg, NRCS
Daryl Lund, NRCS
Joseph R. Makuch, USDA National Agricultural Library
Michael P. O’Neill, CSREES
Charles A. Rewa, NRCS
Mark R. Walbridge, ARS
Roberta Parry, EPA
Mark A. Weltz, ARS

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2008

Comments

Published in Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, Nov/Dec 2008 – Volume 63, No. 6.

Abstract

The Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP) was initiated by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Agricultural Research Service (ARS), and Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) in response to a general call for better accountability of how society would benefit from the 2002 farm bill’s substantial increase in conservation program funding (Mausbach and Dedrick 2004). The original goals of CEAP were to establish the scientific understanding of the effects of conservation practices at the watershed scale and to estimate conservation impacts and benefits for reporting at the national and regional levels. Other federal agencies and nongovernmental organizations with conservation and natural resource interests are currently partners in various CEAP activities, often through jointly funded research projects.