Agricultural nitrogen fertilizer uses in the continental U.S. during 1850-2015: a set of gridded time-series data

To facilitate earth system modeling and inventory-based studies, we developed a spatially explicit time-series data set of nitrogen (N) fertilizer use in agricultural land of the continental U.S. during 1850 to 2015. The spatial resolution of this data set is 5km × 5km, and the time step is annually. Through gap-filling, we reconstructed the state-level crop-specific N fertilizer use history by harmonizing national and state-level N fertilizer use data from multiple data sources. We then spatialized and resampled N fertilizer use data to 5km × 5km gridded maps based on historical land cover data of the continental U.S. developed by Yu and Lu (2017). This data indicated that N fertilizer use rates of the U.S. increased by 34 times from 1940 to 2015. Geospatial analysis revealed that the hotspots of N fertilizer use have shifted from the southeastern and eastern US to the Midwest and the Great Plains during the past century.