County-Level Land Use and Population Data for the Contiguous United States
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Description
Mid-1990s data provides geographic, land use, and population variables for counties in the contiguous United States. It includes land area, water area, cropland area, farmland area, pastureland area, idle cropland area, county centroid coordinates, and population counts. The data was assembled by SCIOPS from USDA NRCS and US Census Bureau sources to model agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.
Use Cases
Model agro-ecosystem greenhouse gas production using county-level cropland_area, pastureland_area, and population as driving variables.
Analyze regional agricultural resource distribution by joining datasets on county geography using latitude and longitude of county centroids.
Assess land use patterns and demographics for policy planning by correlating farmland_area, idle_cropland_area, and population data.
Create baseline geospatial visualizations of US agricultural management and soil properties from the mid-1990s for historical comparison.
Strengths
Data derived from authoritative national databases including the USDA NRCS and US Census Bureau.
Provides specific variables like land_area, water_area, and cropland_area at the county level for the contiguous US.
Limitations
Temporal coverage is from the mid-1990s, making the data stale for contemporary analysis.
Specific row counts, column details, and sample sizes for each of the seven datasets are unknown.
Data was assembled for a specific modeling purpose (DNDC model), which may introduce selection bias for other uses.
Provenance
Source
US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the US Census Bureau.
Collection Method
Derived from publicly available national databases and assembled for greenhouse gas assessment modeling.
Time Range
Mid-1990s.
Freshness
Last updated 1990-12-31; dataset is historical with no indicated update frequency.
Geography
Counties within the contiguous United States.
The data is divided into seven separate datasets; joins likely require county geography keys. License and specific file formats are unknown. Data is historical and was created for a specific agro-ecosystem modeling framework.