Training opportunity on Nov 17, 2025: Exploring watershed erosion and precipitation trends

The Minnesota Office of Soil Health (MOSH) will host an online training workshop for local conservationists in Minnesota to explore a new tool to visualize and compare precipitation and erosion trends at the local scale.

The tools are designed to help conservation professionals analyze watershed trends and create graphics for outreach based on daily models that incorporate precipitation, topography, and cropping practices. In this session, Eduardo Luquin will provide an overview of the Daily Erosion Project (DEP) and introduce two new interactive dashboards.

The DEP is a modeling framework providing daily public estimates of runoff and soil loss from hillslopes at the HUC12 scale. The DEP is continuously improved to better fit Minnesota’s unique landscape, building on a collaboration between University of Minnesota and Iowa State University and funded by the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources.

The output from the daily model can be very complex, so the new dashboards make it easy to summarize information from your location into user-friendly annual maps and charts. You can quickly visualize long-term and interannual trends, compare watersheds, and identify areas with high rates of hillslope soil loss, runoff, and precipitation.

In this one-hour workshop, participants will learn how to:

• Understand the fundamentals of the DEP.
• Navigate the main DEP interactive map for daily erosion and precipitation data.
• Use the new UMN Dashboards to map hillslope soil loss and pinpoint priority areas.
• Compare trends in precipitation, runoff, and soil loss between different watersheds.
• Interpret and export data and visuals to support conservation planning, grant proposals, and reporting.

The workshop is targeted at local conservationists in Minnesota, especially SWCD and Watershed District staff and their partners, plus Extension and ag industry staff who are interested in using the DEP to promote discussion with their stakeholders.

Ready to explore? Get a head start with the tools we will cover during the workshop:

• Daily Erosion Project (DEP)
• UMN Annual Dashboards

Date & Time:

• The webinar will be November 17, 2025, 2:00-3:00 CST. 

Cost:

• This online training is free to attend.

Registration:

• Click here to receive the zoom link

Contact info:

• For more information, contact Marcelle Lewandowski: alewand@umn.edu

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