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Long Term Agroecosystem Research Overview

Agriculture faces tremendous challenges in meeting multiple, diverse societal goals, including a safe and plentiful food supply, climate change adaptation/mitigation, supplying sources of bioenergy, improving water/air/soil quality, and maintaining biodiversity. The LTAR network enables long-term, trans-disciplinary science across farm resource regions to address these challenges. The goal of this research network is to ensure sustained crop and livestock production and ecosystem services from agroecosystems, and to forecast and verify the effects of environmental trends, public policies, and emerging technologies. Ultimately, LTAR is expected to provide a wide array of clients, partners, and stakeholders with four basic outcomes:
  1. Agroecosystem productivity is sustainably enhanced by the development and application of new technologies
  2. Mitigation and adaptation of agroecosystems to climate change is improved by more accurate predictions of resource responses to system drivers
  3. Stronger linkages to other long-term research networks improves conservation and environmental quality in agricultural landscapes
  4. The socio-economic viability of, and opportunities for, rural communities are enhanced through educational outreach by LTAR scientists and collaborators
For the fully interactive version of this LTAR data explorer visit https://ltar.nal.usda.gov.

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LTAR Research Sites

Data from the following LTAR sites are presented. They are related to topics such as agricultural sustainability, climate change, ecosystem services, and natural resource conservation at the watershed or landscape scale.

  • Archbold Biological Station (ABS), Venus, FL
  • Cook Agronomy Farm (CAF), Pullman, WA
  • Central Mississippi River Basin (CMRB), Columbia, MO
  • Central Plains Experimental Range (CPER), Cheyenne, WY; Fort Collins, CO; Nunn, CO
  • Eastern Corn Belt (ECB), Columbus, OH; West Lafayette, IN
  • Gulf Atlantic Coastal Range (GACP), Tifton, GA
  • Great Basin (GB), Boise, ID; Burns, OR
  • Jornada Experimental Range (JER), Las Cruces, NM
  • Kellogg Biological Station (KBS), southwestern MI
  • Lower Mississippi River Basin (LMRB), Oxford, MS; AR; LA; MO
  • Northern Plains (NP), Mandan, ND
  • Platte River-High Plains Aquifer (PRHP), Lincoln, NE
  • Southern Plains (SP), El Reno, OK
  • Texas Gulf (TG), Riesel, TX
  • Upper Chesapeake Bay (UCB), University Park, PA
  • Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB), Ames, IA; MN; WI
  • Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed (WGEW), Tucson, AZ; Tombstone, AZ
  • Lower Chesapeake Bay (LCB), Beltsville, MD

    • Datasets

    2 datasets

    LTAR Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed DAP GIS Layers

    NAL Geospatial Catalog

      The USDA-ARS Southwest Watershed Research Center (SWRC) operates the Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed (WGEW) in southeastern Arizona as an outdoor laboratory for studying semiarid rangeland hydrologic, ecosystem, climate, and erosion processes.

      NAL Geodata

        The United States Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Library Geospatial Data catalog contains geographic location-based agricultural research data, imagery, research location context, and more. Users can search records representing a variety of datasets, maps and graphics, aerial and phenocam images, and other services.