County-Level Estimates of Animal Manure Nutrients in the US

County-based estimates of nitrogen and phosphorus content of animal manure in the United States for 1982, 1987, and 1992. The dataset was created by the Soil Conservation Service using animal population data from the Census of Agriculture. It includes spatial county boundaries and tabular data keyed by Federal Information Processing Standards codes.

Use Cases

• Model nutrient runoff into water systems by analyzing county-level nitrogen and phosphorus estimates from manure.
• Compare changes in agricultural nutrient sources over time using the 1982, 1987, and 1992 estimates.
• Assess regional agricultural intensity by mapping animal population counts linked to county polygons.
• Identify counties with potential data gaps in nutrient loading due to suppressed Census of Agriculture animal counts.

Strengths

• Provides data for three distinct census years (1982, 1987, 1992) enabling temporal analysis.
• Data is organized by 5-digit state/county Federal Information Processing Standards code for consistent geographic joining.
• Includes both spatial county boundaries and multiple tab-delimited lookup tables for animal counts and nutrient estimates.

Limitations

• Animal population data is missing for some counties where production is dominated by a single business, leading to underestimated nutrient totals.
• Estimates are based on a fixed nutrient content per 1,000 pounds of animal weight, which may not reflect local variations.
• Data is temporally stale, with the most recent year being 1992.

Provenance

Source

Soil Conservation Service (1992) and the 1992 Census of Agriculture (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1995).

Collection Method

Estimates calculated from animal population counts using established methods for nutrient content of manure.

Time Range

1982, 1987, 1992

Freshness

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Geography

County-level coverage for the United States.