Annual crop-specific management history of phosphorus fertilizer input (CMH-P) in the croplands of United States from 1850 to 2022: Application rate, timing, and method

This dataset presents spatiotemporal dynamics of phosphorus (P) fertilizer management (application rate, timing, and method) at a 4km × 4 km resolution in agricultural land of the contiguous U.S. from 1850 to 2022. By harmonizing multiple data sources, we reconstructed the county-level crop-specific P fertilizer use history. We then spatialized and resampled P fertilizer use data to 4 km × 4 km gridded maps based on historical U.S. cropland distribution and crop type database developed by Ye et al. (2024).

This dataset contains (1) P fertilizer total consumption and mean application rate at the national level (Tabular); (2) P fertilizer consumption of 11 crops at the state level (Tabular); (3) P fertilizer consumption of permanent pasture (Tabular); (4) P fertilizer consumption of non-farm at the state level (Tabular); (5) P fertilizer application rate of 11 crop types at the state level (Tabular); (6) P fertilizer application rate of 11 crop types at the county level (Tabular); (7) P fertilizer application timing ratio at the state level (Tabular); (8) P fertilizer application method ratio at the state level (Tabular); (9) Gridded maps of P fertilizer application rate based on state-level data; (10) and (11) Gridded maps of P fertilizer application rate based on county-level data; (12)-(20) Gridded maps of P fertilizer application rate for each crop.

A detailed description of the data development processes, key findings, and uncertainties can be found in Cao, P., Yi, B., Bilotto, F., Gonzalez Fischer, C., Herrero, M., Lu, C.: Crop-specific Management History of Phosphorus fertilizer input (CMH-P) in the croplands of United States: Reconciliation of top-down and bottom-up data sources, is under review for the journal Earth System Science Data (ESSD). https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2024-67/#discussion. 

This work is supported by the Iowa Nutrient Research Center, the ISU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean's Faculty Fellowship, and NSF CAREER grant (1945036).