Resource Assessment of Arkansas
Project Overview
The goal of the Arkansas resource assessment is to prioritize NRCS activities
statewide based upon our specific resource concerns summarized at the watershed
level. The Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST) will conduct a
resource assessment for Arkansas following input and guidance as provided by the
NRCS leadership. CAST will coordinate closely with NRCS Arkansas State Office
soils staff to develop and modify the associated modeling and data ranking tasks
before March 2011.
The final reporting unit for the project will be the 8-digit HUC boundaries
located within the state boundaries, but all input datasets and ArcGIS
geoprocessing models will be made available to project partners. Project
documentation and final dataset preparation for distribution will be completed
before August 2011.
The resource assessment will be completed using existing (digital) GIS datasets
and summary metrics using methodologies in agreement with fellow resource
scientists within Arkansas and surrounding regions. We have been gathering
existing GIS datasets that provide the best available statewide metrics for each
of the following NRCS resource concern themes: Soils, Air, Water, Plants,
Animals, Humans, and Energy.
Summary of Arkansas Resource Concerns to be included this Assessment and
methodological considerations as of December 2010
The following resource concerns have been identified as national priorities
within NRCS and these general guidelines for compilation of summary metrics are
the result of our initial review of Resource Assessments performed within other
states and our initial meetings with NRCS staff during the November 2010
planning meetings. These preliminary datasets have been identified as available
within Arkansas and can be summarized by HUC for the entire state. The relative
weighting /ranking of importance within the Resource Assessment will follow the
DRAFT guidelines published within Appendix C of the 2011 National Rankings of
Resource Concerns of all States based upon CPPE (This document can be downloaded
from the project website.) The ranking and prioritization criteria outlined by
these draft NRCS documents will be customized to our needs within Arkansas, and
input from conservation program professionals within our state is needed. We
ask that NRCS program staff contact the Arkansas Resource Assessment project
team via email or the project website (http://raar.cast.uark.edu)
to provide input during this process. Our deadline is early February 2011, so
we will need your input soon.
Additional Information
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Last Modified:
01/03/2011 | 
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