South Dakota Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)

The South Dakota Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Farm Service Agency (FSA) Section Photography collection consists of natural color aerial images acquired by a 35mm camera systems over 33 counties in eastern South Dakota. FSA contracted yearly aerial photography from 1979 through 2002 during the agricultural growing season to monitor compliance with agricultural conservation programs. The program focused on cropland compliance, although other land use types were often captured. The collection of 35mm aerial slides covered a single one-mile square section for images captured from 1979 through 1992 and two one-mile square sections for 1993 through 2002. The sections are based on the Public Land Survey System and are searchable in EarthExplorer. In EarthExplorer the 'Additional Criteria' tab provides additional search options for county, township, range, and section. Digital Products The 35 mm color slide scanning project in South Dakota was coordinated by the NRCS to archive the hardcopy slides in an electronic format for wetland determinations, conservation planning, soil surveying, and other resource management activities. The 35mm slides were scanned at 2500 dpi or 4000 dpi and saved in TIFF format and earlier scans were saved as JPEG's. Images were scanned as they appear on the photographic slide. Since the slides were acquired by a variety of vendors, sometimes from a noticeably oblique angle, the amount of buffer on all four sides and quality of original photography varies by image. In most cases images are oriented North up; there may be a few exceptions The NRCS 35 mm color slide program was replaced in 2003 by the National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP). NAIP continues the NRCS/FSA mission of compliance monitoring as well as serving other needs for yearly aerial flights in collecting digital imagery at one meter or greater resolution. USGS provides data access and is not responsible for the quality or accuracy of the scanned NRCS imagery. Contact Information: NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) South Dakota State Office GIS Branch Federal Building, Room 203 200 4th St SW Huron, SD 57350 Phone Number: 605-352-1200 Toll Free: 800-252-4547 Fax: [phone] Web: http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/site/sd/home/