Tools
The tools presented below represent a portion of the tools available for the climate, agriculture and forestry sectors. The tools range from specialized calculators to maps, models and datasets estimating a variety of outputs (e.g., crop production, greenhouse gas flux, and species distribution). Certain tools may be more relevant to land managers to aid in year-to-year decision-making, while others are more useful for researchers studying agriculture and climate change. Keep in mind that all tools have limitations and make assumptions that may not be appropriate for an entity’s climate/region/crop/soil type. USDA does not endorse the tools presented below. The tool list is provided for informational purposes only, and is not exhaustive.
-
West Texas Mesonate Agro-Climate Monitor
This tool is no longer maintained by USDA ARS, you can find the associated data at the National Agricultural Library site in the link below.
-
AgRisk Viewer
The AgRisk Viewer provides an accessible and discoverable web platform for crop insurance loss data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Risk Management Agency (RMA). Data are available from the county to…
-
Climate Perspectives (CLIMPER)
The Climate Perspectives (CLIIMPER) tool was created by the Southeast Regional Climate Center and the State Climate Office of North Carolina, and provides a way to compare current and forecast weather conditions with a…
-
Grass-Cast: Grassland Productivity Forecast
Every spring, ranchers face the same difficult challenge – trying to guess how much grass will be available for livestock to graze during the upcoming summer. An innovative Grassland Productivity Forecast or “Grass-Cast…
-
Nutrient Tracking Tool
NTT is a tool to estimate nutrient and sediment losses from crop and pasture.
-
USDA Urban Agriculture Toolkit
This toolkit lays out the common operational elements that most urban farmers must consider as they start up or grow their operations.
-
Downscaled climate maps & data
Maps can be created for a variety of variables, models and time periods. All maps, and data-sets are available for use by the community.
-
Risk of Seasonal Climate Extremes in the U.S. Related to ENSO
Selecting a type of ENSO event, temperature or precipitation and season will show the relative risk of climate extremes based on concurrent value of the ENSO index (MEI.ext) for the continental United States.