In cooperation with:
Center for Survey Statistics and Methodology
at
Iowa State University,
Ames, Iowa
50011
DESIGN & HISTORY
ESTIMATION
Nusser, S. M., and J. J. Goebel (1997) "The National Resources Inventory: A Long-Term Multi-Resource Monitoring Programme," Environmental and Ecological Statistics, 4(3):181- 204.
Available by permission of the publisher.
Abstract: Interest in natural resources and the environment has led to the development of new federal monitoring efforts, the expansion of existing federal inventory programmes, and discussions of inter-agency collaboration for natural resource assessment data collection. As federal programmes evolve, knowledge gained from existing long-term survey programmes can provide valuable contributions to statistical and operational aspects of survey efforts. This paper describes the National Resources Inventory (NRI), which has been conducted by the US Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service in cooperation with the Iowa State University Statistical Laboratory for several decades. The current NRI is a longitudinal survey of soil, water, and related environmental resources designed to assess conditions and trends every five years on non-federal US lands. An historical overview is provided highlighting the development of the survey programme. Sample design, data collection, and estimationprocedures used in the 1992 NRI are described, and statistical issues related to long-term monitoring are discussed
KEY WORDS: environmental statistics, imputation, natural resource surveys, survey sampling, two-phase estimation.
Goebel, J. J. (1998) "The National Resources Inventory and Its Role in U.S. Agriculture," Agricultural Statistics 2000: Proceedings of the conference on agricultural statistics organized by the National Agricultural Statistics Service of the US Department of Agriculture, under the auspices of the International Statistical Institute.
Available by permission of the publisher.
Abstract: This paper discusses various aspects of the National Resources Inventory program, which is conducted by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture, in cooperation with the Iowa State University Statistical Laboratory. The Natural Resources Conservation Service, formerly the Soil Conservation Service, has been collecting natural resources data since the 1930s. The current inventory is a longitudinal survey of soil, water and related resources designed to assess condition and trends every five years on the non-federal lands of the United States. An historical overview of this multi-resource inventory is provided. Sample design and data collection are described. Data analysis techniques and modeling are discussed in relation to agri-environmental issues and policy. The National Resources Inventory has evolved over the decades as resource issues have changed; it will continue to evolve as part of an ongoing effort to better assess soil conservation, natural resources health, and other environmental issues.
Fuller, W. A. (1999) "Estimation procedures for the United States National Resources Inventory," 1999 Proceedings of the Survey Methods Section, Statistical Society of Canada (in press).
Abstract: The United States National Resources Inventory is a survey of land use and land cover conducted on a nationwide sample of approximately 300,000 area segments. Data are collected for the segments as a whole and for points within the segments. Information on acreages in political subdivisions (counties) and in topographic subdivisions (hydrologic units), on water areas, and on federally owned areas is available from external sources. Methods of combining this information and the two levels of sample data to create a user-friendly tabulation file are described.
KEY WORDS: Auxiliary information; Two-phase sample; Small area estimation; Panel survey; Environmental survey.
Nusser, S. M., J. M. Kienzler and W. A. Fuller (1999) " Geostatistical Estimation Data for the 1997 National Resources Inventory."
Working paper.
Summary: The purpose of this report is to outline the procedures used to develop geostatistical information for the 1997 National Resources Inventory (NRI). Geostatistical data are incorporated into estimation procedures in such a way that the 1997 NRI database is representative of the geospatial data."
Fuller, W. A., K. W. Dodd, J. Wang and C. Peterson. (2001) "Estimation for the 1997 National Resources Inventory."< /p>
Summary: This document contains details of the estimation and processing procedures used for the 1997 NRI.
Nusser, S. M., F. J. Breidt, and W. A. Fuller. (1998) "Design and Estimation for Investigating the Dynamics of Natural Resources, " Ecological Applications, 8(2) pp. 234-245. Article reprinted with permission of the Ecol. Soc. of America.
Abstract: Federal agencies, policy makers, and scientists have long been interested in monitoring natural resources and environmental conditions on a national and regional scale. One of the main objectives of these studies is to estimate temporal changes in the extent and condition of natural resources. In its simplest form, temporal change can be defined as the difference between population parameter values at two time points for a given population. A more complex investigation of change in an ecological system involves studying the underlying dynamics that produce an observed net change. We discuss the general problem of sample design and statistical estimation to support investigations of the dynamics of change in ecological systems, particularly when a limited number of temporal observations are available. We focus on large-scale natural resource monitoring surveys through the example provided by the National Resources Inventory (NRI), a longitudinal survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Sample design, data collection, and statistical methods for constructing an accessible database are outlined, with emphasis on features that support investigations concerned with temporal dynamics. An example from the 1992 NRI is presented to illustrate methods for investigating temporal changes in land use in relation to observed changes in erosion rates over time. Finally, we discuss how statistical methods developed for the NRI program can be applied more broadly to environmental monitoring studies.
KEY WORDS: Environmental monitoring; environmental statistics; multi-stage design; survey sampling; two-phase estimation.
1997 National Resources Inventory Summary Report
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