Soil Climate Regimes of Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve

Waltman (USDA), W.

The Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve (10,900 ac) was recently acquired through the National Park Trust and will be managed by the National Park Service under a cooperative agreement. The Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve (TPNP) is located in the Bluestem Hills Major Land Resource Area of Kansas. As part of the management planning for the TPNP, the climatology of the region was summarized and modeled to evaluate shifts in the soil climate regimes. The Cottonwood Falls, KS weather station has the nearest location to the site and a weather record extending from 1948 to the present. However, complete data for modeling purposes extends from 1949 to 1995.