Introduction

The National Resources Inventory (NRI) is a statistical survey of land use and natural resource conditions and trends on U.S. non-Federal lands.  Non-Federal land includes privately owned land, tribal and trust land, and lands controlled by State and local governments.  The NRI is conducted by the Natural Resources Conservation Service in cooperation with Iowa State University's Center for Survey Statistics and Methodology.

The NRI program serves as the Federal Government's principal source of information on the status, condition, and trends of soil, water, and related resources in the United States.

New! NRI Transitions from Periodic 5-Year Inventory to New Annual Inventory

The NRI was conducted every 5 years during the period 1977 through 1997, but currently is in transition to a continuous, or annual, inventory process.  This shift helps align the NRI with the need for timely information to support development and assessment of agricultural and conservation policies and programs.  A continuous inventory approach also distributes the NRI workload more evenly across years and provides efficiencies in the data gathering and quality assurance processes.

The 2001 Annual NRI is the first of the annual NRI releases and presents national-level estimates for Land Use, Soil Erosion, and Urbanization and Development status and trends on non-Federal lands.  Subsequent Annual NRIs will provide a broader spectrum of results -- additional topics, and estimates at additional geographic levels (regional, then State-level, and eventually sub-State).

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