Data from: Eating the metaphorical elephant: Meeting Nitrogen Reduction Goals in Upper Mississippi River Basin States

The hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico is the world's second largest. In 2008, the Hypoxia Task Force directed states in the Mississippi River Basin to develop plans to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus loads to the Gulf. The states of Iowa, Illinois, and Minnesota developed Nutrient Reduction Strategies (NRS) based on science assessments. The NRS quantified the effectiveness of management, land use changes, and conservation practices to reduce nutrient losses. The objective of this research was to estimate nutrient reductions for different levels of implementation of management and land use changes and edge-of-field practices. Selected practices across the states were grouped as (1) in-field management, (2) changes in land use, and (3) edge-of-field. Four increasingly challenging levels of implementation were identified: benchmark, low, medium, and high. Benchmark estimates were taken from the time the states' NRS were written (2012–13). The high level of implementation was taken to be maximum achievable adoption with low and medium levels between the benchmark and high. Land areas in row cropping in the states were obtained from the 2012 NASS Cropland Data Layer.

墨西哥湾的缺氧区是全球第二大。2008年，缺氧任务组指导密西西比河流域的各州制定减少向海湾输入氮和磷负荷的计划。爱荷华州、伊利诺伊州和明尼苏达州根据科学评估制定了营养素减少策略（NRS）。NRS量化了管理、土地利用变化和 Conservation practices 对减少营养素流失的有效性。本研究的目的是估算不同管理层级和土地利用变化以及田边实践对营养素减少的影响。各州选定的实践被分为（1）田内管理，（2）土地利用变化，（3）田边。确定了四个实施难度逐渐增加的级别：基准、低、中、高。基准估计值取自各州NRS制定的时间（2012-2013年）。高实施水平被视为可达到的最大采用水平，而低和中水平则介于基准和高水平之间。各州的条形作物土地利用面积数据来自2012年的NASS农作物数据层。