EVALUATING SOIL PROPERTIES OF CRP LAND USING REMOTE-SENSING AND GIS IN FINNEY COUNTY, KANSAS

The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) began in 1986 with the primary purpose of reducing soil erosion. It also war intended to help the dev elopment of sustainable agriculture and associated environmental harmo ny However, its effectiveness has been questioned because of the large rests and extensive staff required to conduct the program. The object ives of our study were to test procedures for integrating remote sensi ng and geographic information systems (GIS) techniques to evaluate the present CRP in terms of its main goal, and to give recommendations fo r the future of the program in Finney County, Kansas. Three seasonal L andsat Thematic Mapper (TM) images were used to derive the land-use/la nd cover (LULC) map. This information was incorporated with spatial di mensions of soil surface horizon thickness, surface horizon texture, s oil family, soil subgroup, and soil erodibility index (EI), all of whi ch were extracted or calculated from the Natural Resources Conservatio n Service (NRCS) soil survey geographic (SSURGO) data base. With GIS t echniques, calculation of EI was move efficient and the value was more accurate than that calculated by hand. We found the average EI of the county to be 20, with the highest EI of 77 in the southwest portion o f the study area. CRP land had higher soil fertility and a lower EI th an land currently used for farming; therefore, the CRP for this county did not necessarily include the lank most susceptible to erosion. We suggest continuing the CRP program in Finney County, because the soils are generally at serious risk of erosion. We also suggest modifying t he eligibility rules of the program in order to target the most enviro nmentally sensitive lands.