TREND-Phosphorus and gTREND-Phosphorus - Long-term phosphorus mass balance data for the contiguous United States (1930-2017)

We developed two complementary datasets that track phosphorus (P) mass balance across the United States from 1930 to 2017, providing both county-level and high-resolution gridded data for quantifying phosphorus fluxes and surplus across space and time. We synthesized components of the anthropogenic P mass budget including: P fertilizer, manure P, human P waste, food P waste, laundry and dish detergent P, atmospheric P deposition, crop and pasture P removal, and the total P surplus (net P inputs).TREND-Phosphorus provides these P components and budget calculations at the annual county scale, constructed using publicly-available datasets from the U.S. Census of Agriculture, the United States Geological Survey, and the U.S. Census Bureau.gTREND-Phosphorus builds on this county-level foundation by downscaling the data to a 250-m grid based on land use. This represents the first 88-year, 250-m gridded phosphorus mass budget dataset for the United States. To facilitate data access, each P component is provided as a separate zipped folder.These datasets are designed to facilitate multi-decadal investigations of anthropogenic P dynamics across the U.S. in the context of long-term changes in agricultural management and land use. The high-resolution gTREND-Phosphorus dataset enables finer-scale investigations of P dynamics, especially in small to medium-sized watersheds where land-use heterogeneity is high. Together, these data can support a wide range of scientific and policy applications, including long-term environmental monitoring, hotspot identification, and targeted nutrient management.All authors participated in the creation of these data. DKB lead the creation of the county-scale TREND-Phosphorus dataset. SYC lead the gTREND-Phosphorus downscaling of county-scale component and surplus.