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.