South Dakota Dynamic Soil Properties (DSP) Project
The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) helps people to better understand natural resources and thus make more informed decisions regarding the management of those resources.
Dynamic soil properties (DSPs) are soil properties that change with natural and anthropogenic disturbances and stressors including agricultural and rangeland management. DSPs are indicators of soil function and soil change. Soil function describes what the soil does. DSPs are collected along with vegetation, management system and disturbance information.
For the learning and understanding the health of soils, an NRCS technical team of soil scientists and ecological science specialists performed a series of soil tests on the same soil type at different locations with different management systems across South Dakota.