Fiscal Year 2003: Performance Report U.S. Department of Agricultire Natural Resources Conservation Service

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of these outreach efforts, and traditionally underserved segments of the producer population were well represented. A key element of our outreach was to get the national and local priorities for conservation programs onto the Internet. Having access to these priorities helps producers focus their time and effort on submitting applications that have the best chance of being approved - one more way in which our e- government efforts pro- duce better service for our customers. Maintaining Technical Infrastructure Effective stewardship depends on having science -based information and technology that are up to date with current condi- tions, easily accessible, and designed to meet user needs. NRCS meets a broad range of technology and information needs — from conservation "how -to" for the homeowner to technical standards and tools for conservation professionals. We design and keep current, with evolving science and research, a list of 160 National Conservation Practice Standards that help private land owners to achieve personal conservation and production goals and to meet their community's envi- ronmental expectations. NRCS technical standards for soil science and soil surveys, conservation engineering, plant science, and other specialties are recognized world- wide. In FY 2003, we focused on provid- ing basic soil survey information in digital form so that it can be more accessible and more easily utilized by planners and land managers. We also emphasized making more of our data and technical tools avail- able on the Internet (Table 6.) Table 6. Making technical information available electronically in FY 2003. Performance Goals Performance Indicators FY2003 FY2003 Target Actual Develop and maintain Certified soil surveys 1,685 1,685 technical infrastructure available in digital form, (cumulative number) Customers accessing NRCS technical data electronically: Change in definition Water users and managers 186' 1,560 utilizing information developed by the snow survey and water supply forecasting program, (1000s of accesses to water supply web pages) Customers accessing or 50,400 78,394 downloading soils data, (total number of STATSGO and SSURGO downloads or CD orders) Customers accessing or 1,880 3,100 downloading plant science information (PLANTS database), (1000s of customers) Fiscal Year 2003 Performance Report 15