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Latest Updates
The Sunshine State has been added to the ACPF!
Now 171,000 new agricultural field boundaries have been added to the ACPF National Field Boundary collection.
Update August 2025
The ACPF National Hub is thrilled to announce the release of the ACPF Version 7 Toolbox, along with the new ACPF Spatial Data Framework! In Version 7, we are introducing a suite of new tools and modifications to identify opportunities for phosphorus removal structures, or P-Traps, that address dissolved reactive phosphorus (DRP) in agricultural landscapes.
Our tools are based on long-term research of Dr. Chad Penn, USDA ARS National Soil Erosion Research Laboratory, supported in part by the USDA NRCS Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP) and the USDA ARS Long-Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) network.
Dr. Penn’s research has resulted in the recent addition of the NRCS national conservation practice standard 624 – Phosphorus Removal System. A system "to remove dissolved phosphorus from surface runoff, subsurface drain, or ditch flows using a phosphorus sorption media within a containment structure."
Update June 2025
New ACPF Core Data
Also in Version 7, the ACPF National Hub is supporting a near-national scale of ACPF use. To accomplish this, a national field boundary collection has been assembled and made available through a web feature service. You no longer download existing data from our website; simply choose a HUC12 and use the Utilities in the toolbox.
If you know your HUC12 ID, open the Utilities drawer in the ACPF Toolbox and paste the ID into the u1. Initialize ACPF Core Data and you're on your way! Or explore the ACPF Core Data Availability map to locate your HUC12 ID.
These services allow a user to access the field boundary collection on a HUC12 basis and begin the creation of an ACPF file geodatabase (FileGDB). By using the Utilities tools u1–u4, the user can create an ACPF core database in a file geodatabase format for one of over 50,000 agricultural HUC12 watersheds in the US.
We recognize that by expanding the spatial extent of ACPF data, we will be entering agricultural landscapes where we have had limited opportunities to work. While challenging, we view this as an opportunity to collaborate with new users, conservation specialists, and scientists to explore innovative solutions to address their resource concerns. The ACPF National Hub Team is eager to open conversations with you to support your agricultural conservation planning efforts.
New ACPF Toolbox
In ACPF Version 7, three new tools have been added, one tool has been updated, and several other minor changes have been made. For a complete list of updates, as well as step-by-step instructions on how to create an ACPF FileGDB, please refer to the Release Notes.
Download ACPF Toolbox Version 7
Toolbox Adjustment Update ACPF_V7_Pro_092025
New ACPF Toolbox User's Manual
Download the newly formatted Agricultural Conservation Planning Framework
ArcGIS® Toolbox User’s Manual Version 7.
Download ACPF Toolbox User's Manual Version 7
Who Can Use the ACPF
Conservation Planners and Field Staff
- Who: Boots-on-the-ground professionals and technical staff at agencies like the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Soil & Water Conservation Districts (SWCD), watershed districts, and local conservation organizations.
- How: These users apply ACPF output maps to target conservation practices on specific fields, prioritize outreach, and have better conversations with landowners. They usually interpret the maps and decide how to act on the data, but do not have to run the full ACPF toolbox themselves. The results are often prepared by others and shared with them for planning and outreach.
- In Real Life: Dunn County Land and Water Conservation District staff in Wisconsin used the ACPF outputs to guide where to contact landowners and which conservation practices to recommend, facilitating neighbor-to-neighbor learning and broad adoption.
GIS Specialists and Technical Teams
- Who: GIS analysts and technicians at state agencies, universities, consulting firms, and larger conservation organizations.
- How: These users run the ACPF toolbox within ArcGIS software, prepare data, and generate customizable output maps for their colleagues. They need moderate ArcGIS proficiency and knowledge of local landscape features to get quality results. Teamwork is key: the technical staff work closely with the field practitioners to ensure the output is locally relevant and beneficial.
- In Real Life: In Minnesota, GIS technicians from different counties and organizations ran the ACPF, and then they partnered with the field staff to ground-truth and fine-tune the results before using the results in programs such as the Minnesota Ag Water Quality Certification Program.
Watershed Coordinators and Project Leaders
- Who: Project managers, watershed coordinators, and outreach specialists.
- How: These folks use ACPF results to plan and organize watershed meetings, secure funding, and coordinate conservation efforts across multiple farms or stakeholders. The maps serve as conversation starters and provide scientific justification for funding applications. They often act as liaisons, bringing together stakeholders like drainage authorities, county officials, and landowners.
- In Real Life: A diverse group of local SWCDs, watershed coordinators, agencies, and project advisors formed the Root River Watershed project in Southeast Minnesota. They leveraged ACPF to identify and map fields at risk for runoff, then engaged farmers through personalized, easy-to-read conservation reports.
Landowners and Producers
- Who: Farmers and landowners are technically end-users, though they rarely run the ACPF themselves.
- How: They benefit from seeing ACPF maps — often during one-on-one visits — with conservation planners. The visual data helps farmers and landowners understand resource concerns and conservation opportunities on their land. It gives them agency in choosing what works best for their realities.
Partners and Collaborators
- Who: Extension professionals, NGOs, academic researchers, private sector consultants, and agency partners.
- How: These groups use ACPF data for research, education, and in developing or evaluating conservation strategies. Universities incorporate ACPF into coursework to train conservation professionals.
Key Takeaway:
If you're a planner or field staff, you'll use ACPF results as part of your workflow for conservation planning.
- If you're a GIS professional, you'll create those results.
Sign Up for Technical Training
If you're a partner or watershed leader, you'll leverage the results for planning, outreach, and grant writing.
- Landowners, in turn, use the information to make practical decisions about their land.
Software Requirements
The ACPF toolbox requires that the user have the following software installed:
- ArcGIS Pro Advanced, version 3.0 and above with Spatial Analyst Extension. If you are using ArcGIS Desktop and you need an earlier version of the ACPF toolbox, please email a request to: acpfsupport@iastate.edu
- ACPF version 7 no longer requires TauDEM. Although this software is no longer required, the tools it contains are still very useful.
- Terrain Analysis Using Digital Elevation Models (TauDEM), Copyright © 2004 David Tarboton, Utah State University. Available for download at no cost from: https://hydrology.usu.edu/taudem/taudem5/
ACPF Toolbox Overview
The ACPF Toolbox uses detailed land use, soil, field boundaries, and terrain data to locate opportunities for conservation practices within crop fields, at the field edge, or along streams. It includes easy-to-use tools that let you customize conservation practices for your watershed, so you get a tailored, flexible menu of options that fit your landscape needs.
Here's what each toolset in ACPF Toolbox Version 7 lets you do in real-world watershed planning:
1. DEM Preparation
- Prepare, clean up, and analyze your digital elevation data: You selectively fill sinks, resolve odd flow paths so the terrain data accurately reflects real water movement.
- Manual repair of drainage flows: If a DEM has inaccurate hydrology, you get hands-on tools to re-route flows realistically.
2. Stream Network and Catchments
- Map out the stream network: Automatically sketch streams, pour points, and catchments, then merge in water bodies as needed.
- Perfect for seeing how fields relate to streams or for targeting subcatchments for practice siting.
3. Field Characterization
- Assess slopes, drainage, and risk: Generate by-field statistics (mean, range of slope), flag likely tile-drained areas, assess how close fields are to streams, and create runoff risk maps. This helps answer: “Where are the riskiest fields for runoff or soil loss?”
4. Precision Conservation Practice Siting
- Generate spatial “menus” of possible practice locations: Identify field depressions, show their drainage areas, assess where grassed waterways, buffer strips, edge-of-field bioreactors, phosphorus traps, and more could fit. These tools offer ideas, not mandates—think “brainstorming, not blueprints.”
- New in Version 7: Expanded phosphorus removal (P-Trap) tools to address dissolved P in both surface and subsurface waters.
5. Impoundment Siting
- Suggest options for wetlands, ponds, and water/sediment basins: Find locations in the landscape where wetlands, farm ponds, or WASCOBs might be feasible.
6. Riparian Assessment
- Get detailed about streamside areas: Break out riparian catchments, map their attributes, assess their function (e.g., buffer potential, denitrification), and flag where two stage ditches or saturated buffers might help.
7. Soil Vulnerability Index (SVI) Tools
- Pinpoint soil risk areas: Both mapunit-based and pixel-based tools let you rate soils by their risk of eroding or leaching nutrient loss, field by field.
8. Utilities
- Make your life easier: Quickly pull in high-quality boundary data, soils, crop histories (from NASS CDL), update edited boundaries, or reproject your datasets.
- Get US roads data to consider access, setbacks, or design logistics.
How these tools help in practice:
- Brainstorm and collaborate: Use the output maps with your watershed team to discuss "what ifs." Maybe a depression could host a new wetland, or maybe a riparian catchment is ripe for buffer restoration. All locations are opportunities — you decide.
- Sharpen outreach: Field-level summaries spotlight high-risk or high-opportunity areas, so your conversations with landowners can be targeted, concrete, and efficient.
- Stay flexible: The framework never demands changes or picks "best" locations — local knowledge and landowner priorities always steer the plan.
- The ACPF Toolbox turns complicated spatial data into user-friendly, watershed-scale "option maps" so you and your partners can move quickly from big-picture planning to on-the-ground, smarter, faster action with everyone on board.
ACPF Core Data Overview
The ACPF Core Data now covers over 50,000 agricultural HUC12 watersheds across the entire conterminous United States. This means nearly every agriculturally significant watershed in the lower 48 states has a ready-to-use ACPF File Geodatabase available. The goal is near-national reach, so if you’re a conservation planner in Iowa, Illinois, Arkansas, or upstate New York, even the eastern reaches of Washington, the odds are high that your watershed is already included in the ACPF’s coverage.
ACPF Core Data in a Nutshell:
The Core Data is the essential starting dataset you need to run the ACPF tools for any watershed. Think of it as the “ingredients list” for your conservation planning; each piece is required for precision analysis, mapping, and siting of conservation practices. Here’s what’s included and what each part means for your GIS or field work:
1. Watershed Boundary
- Polygon layer defining the HUC12 watershed, derived from USGS data.;
- The spatial “bowl” you’re planning within.
2. Buffered Boundary
- Watershed plus a 1,000-meter buffer that unions with field boundaries and the watershed boundary.
- Ensures all edge fields are included, even if they straddle the watershed line.
3. Field Boundaries
- Polygons for agricultural fields in the watershed.
- With a simple “isAG” attribute to flag agricultural, pasture, shrubland, and non-ag.
- Quick queries (e.g., “show only ag fields”) are a breeze!.
4. Soil Data (gSSURGO and tables)
- 10-meter raster of soil types plus tables for:
- Surface horizon
- Surface texture
- Soil profile (deep attributes)
- Links soils to each location using keys.
- The foundation for drainage, vulnerability, and practice eligibility.
5. Land Use & Crop History
- Tables summarizing the last six years’ dominant crop per field and year-by-year crop history.
- Connects directly to fields via unique IDs.
- Instantly know past and current crops for rotations, eligibility, and trends.
6. Annual Cropland Data Layers
- Yearly rasters (NASS CDL) of crop/land cover, clipped to the buffered boundary.
- Raw gridded land use data for detailed or custom queries.
7. Digital Elevation Model
- High-resolution, lidar-based elevation model (1–2 meter pixels).
- Not included by default—you supply your own!
- All terrain, slope, drainage, and practice siting depend on a good DEM.
How do you know if your watershed is covered?
You can search for your watershed by its 12-digit HUC using the...
- Field boundary data and all other ACPF Core Data layers are available for each of these HUC12s, enabling you to jump right into watershed planning without having to build the FileGDB from scratch.
- If your watershed is not available, you may need to build your core data beginning with your field boundaries, watershed boundary, and the watershed buffer.
Elevation Data Overview
What Kind of Elevation Data Does ACPF Use?
- Type: High-resolution, lidar-derived Digital Elevation Model (DEM).
- Resolution Needed: 1–2 meters (horizontal), with vertical units in meters or centimeters.
- Coverage: The DEM should cover the watershed plus a 1,000-meter buffer (to include edge fields and ensure clean hydrologic analysis).
Why Is This DEM So Important?
- Hydrology Core: The DEM is the foundation for all flowpath, stream, catchment, and drainage calculations in ACPF. Every conservation practice siting tool depends on it.
- Actions Supported: Slope analysis, flow accumulation, depression (pothole) detection, stream network definition, runoff risk, and more.
Pro Tip: If your DEM isn’t accurate or doesn’t cover the buffer, you will have gaps or errors in practice siting, so always double-check coverage and quality before you start.
Main Requirements & Steps
- You provide the DEM:
- The ACPF core dataset does NOT include a DEM by default. You need to add it. DEMs can usually be found at local/state lidar collections.
- DEM should be “unfilled”:
- Sinks (depressions) and real features should remain. Hydrologic “conditioning” (pit fill/hole punch) is done within ACPF tools as a first step.
- Coordinate System:
- Match all layers (usually UTM based on watershed centroid) and use meters for horizontal units.
- DEM Preparation Tools (Built-In):
- Pit Fill/Hole Punch: Cleans up noise/artifacts but preserves real landscape features.
- Manual Cut/Dam Lines: Let's you edit for bridges or culverts that the lidar missed.
Not sure where to find your state's DEM data?
- Ask the ACPF Forum.
- List of DEM sites:
The DEM is the spatial backbone for the ACPF's precision conservation tools. Start with great elevation data, and your watershed analysis will be faster, more accurate, and field-ready for practical decisions.
