Manuresheds: Redesigning crop-livestock agriculture for sustainable intensification

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) US Department of Agriculture; National Agricultural Library

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
adc_metadata.json application/json 30.8 KB 06/27/2026 06:08:AM
catalog_detail.html text/html 16.2 KB 06/26/2026 11:48:AM
manureshed.zip application/zip 6.9 MB 06/26/2026 11:48:AM

Project Citation: 

US Department of Agriculture, and National Agricultural Library. Manuresheds: Redesigning crop-livestock agriculture for sustainable intensification. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2026-06-27. https://doi.org/10.3886/E250414V1

Project Description

Project Title:  View help for Project Title Manuresheds: Redesigning crop-livestock agriculture for sustainable intensification
Summary:  View help for Summary Nutrient recycling is fundamental to sustainable agricultural systems, but few mechanisms exist to ensure that surplus manure nutrients from animal feeding operations are transported for use on nutrient-deficient croplands. As a result, manure nutrients concentrate in locations where they can threaten environmental health and devalue manure as a fertilizer resource. This data set is from a study advances the concept of the “manureshed” – the lands surrounding animal feeding operations onto which manure nutrients can be redistributed to meet environmental, production, and economic goals. Manuresheds can be managed at multiple scales, for example, on farms with both animals and crops, among animal farms and crop farms within a county, or even among animal farms and crop farms in distant counties. With a focus on redistribution among counties, we classified the 3109 counties of the contiguous United States by their capacity to either supply manure phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) from confined livestock production (“sources”) or to assimilate and remove excess P and N via crops (“sinks”) [see data for N tonnes, P tonnes, N kg/ha, P kg/ha]. Manure nutrient source counties were identified in 40 of the 48 states, with a substantial concentration in the southern US. Source counties for manure P greatly outnumbered source counties for manure N (390 vs. 100), and 99 of the 100 manure N source counties were also source counties for manure P. Conversely, sink counties for manure N outnumbered sink counties for manure P (2766 vs. 2317). We used the P balances of the source and sink counties to delineate four manuresheds dominated by various combinations of confined hog, poultry, dairy, and beef industries [see data for Manuresheds (tonnes)]. The four manuresheds differed in the transport distances needed to assimilate excess manure P from their respective source areas (from 147 ± 51 km for a beef dominated manureshed to 368 ± 140 km for a poultry dominated manureshed), highlighting the need for systems-level strategies to promote manure nutrient recycling that operate across local, county, regional, and national scales.


Resources in this dataset:

Resource Title: Agricultural Collaborative Research Outcomes System (AgCROS) and Manureshed link. File Name: manureshed.zipResource Description: AgCROS: https://agcros-usdaars.opendata.arcgis.com/ Manureshed: https://usdaars.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=881305934d62494bbbeeb5f36b735eb9

Resource Title: Agricultural Collaborative Research Outcomes System (AgCROS) and Manureshed link.

File Name: manureshed.zip

Resource Description: AgCROS: https://agcros-usdaars.opendata.arcgis.com/

Manureshed: https://usdaars.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=881305934d62494bbbeeb5f36b735eb9
Original Distribution URL:  View help for Original Distribution URL https://agdatacommons.nal.usda.gov/articles/dataset/Manuresheds_Redesigning_crop-livestock_agriculture_for_sustainable_intensification/24665478

Scope of Project

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms ARS; LTAR; Jornada Experimental Range; manure; poultry; hogs; beef; dairy; source-sink; Agriculture; nutrients; phosphorus; Long Term Agroecosystem Research; nitrogen; manuresheds; data.gov
Geographic Coverage:  View help for Geographic Coverage United States
Time Period(s):  View help for Time Period(s) 12/31/2012 – 12/31/2012
Data Type(s):  View help for Data Type(s) geographic information system (GIS) data
Collection Notes:  View help for Collection Notes DOI: 10.15482/USDA.ADC/1518435 Citation: Spiegal, S., et al. (2020). Manureshed delineation via analysis of county-level data from IPNI-NuGIS and USDA-NASS (2012). https://doi.org/10.15482/USDA.ADC/1518435 (Downloaded 2026-06-26)


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V1 [2026-06-27]

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