Soil and Water Conservation Needs -- A National Inventory

Report Highlights: The National Inventory of Soil and Water Conservation Needs shows that nearly two thirds of the non-Federal rural land of the United States needs conservation treatment of some kind. Nearly 888 out of 1,433 million acres in the 48 mainland States, or 890 out of 1,437 million acres in the entire United States, needs conservation treatment. In either case, the land needing treatment is 62 percent of the non-Federal land expected to be in agricultural use by 1975. It includes 62 percent of the cropland, 73 percent of the non-Federal pasture and range, and 55 percent of the non-Federal forest and woodland. Of the 12,711 small watersheds identified in the U.S. mainland, 8,323 or 65 percent need project action which requires government and private cooperation to deal with flood prevention and water problems. Of 70 watersheds in Hawaii, 35 need projects. Inventory estimates are based on data obtained from mapping soils and land use as they were in 1958 on sample areas that were selected to provide adequate statistical sampling of every rural county in the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Needed conservation treatments were estimated to include land use changes expected by 1975.