Assessment of the environmental impacts of conservation practices for reporting at the regional and national scales. • �Continue CEAP activities designed to estimate environmental benefits of conservation practices and programs. • �Develop a framework for reporting impacts of conservation practices and programs in terms of ecosystem services. • �Identify future conservation requirements and provide information for setting national and regional priorities. • �Expand assessment capabilities to address potential impacts of changes in agricultural land use and policy and define necessary conservation programs to meet new environmental challenges brought about by alternative land use or policy changes.

Three principal themes will guide CEAP investments and activities in the future (Maresch et al. 2008): 1. �Research addressing effective and efficient implementation of conservation practices and programs to meet environmental goals and enhance environmental quality. • �Continue and expand CEAP research projects on the effects and benefits of conservation practices for soil and water quality at the watershed and landscape scales. • �Implement a new research and assessment initiative for grazing lands designed to provide scientific evidence for implementation of conservation practices at the landscape scale. • �Determine the critical processes and attributes to be measured at the appropriate landscape position for evaluation of environmental benefits. • �Expand the scope of assessment to include evaluation of a full suite of ecosystem services influenced by conservation practices and programs.

CEAP products would have wide utility for diverse stakeholders within the conservation community. CEAP has evolved into an assessment and research initiative directed at determining not only the impacts of conservation practices, but also evaluating procedures to more effectively manage agricultural landscapes in order to address environmental quality goals at local, regional, and national scales (Maresch et al. 2008).

The USDA engaged the Soil and Water Conservation Society in 2005 to assemble a panel of university scientists and conservation community leaders to recommend the most effective, proactive, and scientifically credible CEAP activities—thereby ensuring that

A secondary goal of CEAP is to establish a framework for assessing and reporting the full suite of ecosystem services impacted by various conservation practices. Ecosystem services represent the benefits that ecological processes convey to human societies and the natural environment. For example, agricultural lands provide flood and drought mitigation, water and air purification, biodiversity, carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, and aesthetics and recreation, in addition to the primary agricultural commodities produced. These ecosystem services are often taken for granted and unpriced or underpriced by the marketplace. Research and assessment activities will be integrated within CEAP to provide a scientific foundation for assessing the extent to which ecosystem services are enhanced by conservation practices and programs.

quality of managed lands. CEAP is focused on establishing principles to guide cost-effective conservation practices at landscape scales and to achieve multiple environmental quality goals by placing specified conservation practices or combinations of complementary practices at appropriate locations on the landscape to maximize their effectiveness. CEAP is also developing science-based guidance, information, and decision support tools to determine the appropriate practices to be implemented at various locations on the landscape and to provide conservation program managers with a blueprint for delivery of science-based and cost-effective conservation programs (Duriancik et al. 2008).

The Conservation Effects Assessment (Mausbach and Dedrick 2004). Project (CEAP) is a unique, multiagency effort designed to quantify conservation effects and to determine how conservation practices can be most effectively designed and implemented to protect and enhance environmental quality (Duriancik et al. CeaP Goals The primary goal of CEAP is to strengthen the scientific foundation underpinning conservation programs to protect and enhance environmental Rangelands represent non-cultivated, non-forested land that is extensively managed with ecological principles. (Photo: David Briske) 2008). CEAP was jointly initiated in 2003 by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in partnership with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) in response to requests from Congress and the Office of Management and Budget for greater accountability to US taxpayers following a near doubling of US Department of Agriculture (USDA) conservation program funding in the 2002 Farm Bill. These funds are allocated to multiple conservation practices through several USDA-sponsored conservation programs, including the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, Wetlands Reserve Program, Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program, Conservation Reserve Program, and NRCS Conservation Technical Assistance Program. This funding increase was concomitant with substantial modifications to