Work Started on Water Quality and Grazing Management Services

Through a new Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU) agreement supported by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), the OMS team has initiated work to build OMS/CSIP water quality assessment and grazing management computational and data services to support conservation planning and resource analysis workflows.  The water quality related computational services include water quality sensitivity rating (WQSR), nutrient leaching and runoff potential and associated conservation treatment/benefit scores, sediment runoff potential and associated conservation treatment/benefit scores, pesticide hazard rating for 7 hazard classes and associated conservation treatment/benefit scores.  Data stores and services include nutrient, pesticide, and extensions to the Land Management Operations Database (LMOD) for nutrient and pesticide operations.

Grazing management computational and data services will include forage inventory and production, animal inventory and demand, grazing schedule, animal-forage balance, and quick stocking rate.  The services will tap ecological site description (ESD), forage suitability (FSG), and soil (SSURGO) data sources for forage inventory, provide for a animal (livestock/wildlife) database, and integrate with PLANTS (http://plants.usda.gov) for automated field data collection processes.

These computational and data services will be used by NRCS business applications, but when completed also will be available for integration with other applications through CSIP services (http://www.javaforge.com/project/csip).  The period of performance for the agreement is through calendar year 2015.