United States Department of Agriculture
Natural Resources Conservation Service
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Soil Change Guide - Procedures for Soil Survey and Resource Inventory

This Guide is designed for soil survey, vegetation, and ecological site or unit inventory work in order to help soil scientists and other inventory specialists collect interpretable data about soil change within the human time scale. This Guide describes a sampling system to measure dynamic soil properties for all major land uses (except urban lands where the land and soil have been significantly reshaped). The Guide includes instructions for project planning, field execution, and data analysis and storage. Procedures for gathering general management history on croplands and vegetation data on other lands are included to verify and validate the management regime or plant community where dynamic soil property data are collected. Vegetation data are also collected to provide context for interpreting dynamic soil properties and contribute to the interpretation of soil-plant-hydrologic interactions.

Proper citation for this document is:
Tugel, Arlene J., Skye A. Wills, and Jeffrey E. Herrick. 2008. Soil Change Guide: Procedures for Soil Survey and Resource Inventory, Version 1.1. USDA, Natural Resources Conservation Service, National Soil Survey Center, Lincoln, NE.

PDF files require Acrobat Reader; DOC files require Microsoft Word; and XLS files require Microsoft Excel.

Table of Contents

Soil Change Guide (includes text only; see below for worksheets, forms, and Excel applications)

Planning Documents (from Appendix 1)

Sampling Requirements Tools (from Appendices 2 and 3)

Field Forms (from Appendix 3)

Data Entry Sheets (Interim Storage) (from Appendix 3)