This data contains a comparison between the soil loss values we calculated using RUSLE and those produced by the Iowa State University's Daily Erosion Project (DEP). The comparison is done for almost 5,000 12-digit HUC's in Iowa, and parts of Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri. The DEP uses the Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) hillslope model with high temporal resolution, Next-Generation Weather 200 RADAR (NEXRAD) precipitation, and crop specific parameters such as C and P factors obtained from the confidential NRI database The comparison between RUSLE and DEP was made for HUC-12s with greater than 75% agricultural land cover. This threshold was used because DEP only models agricultural erosion, while our RUSLE-derived HUC-12 estimates include all land cover types. This data set corresponds to Fig 2 in the manuscript.

This dataset is associated with the following publication: Woznicki, S., P. Cada, J. Wickham, M. Schmidt, J. Baynes, M. Mehaffey, and A. Neale. Sediment retention by natural landscapes in the conterminous United States. SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT. Elsevier BV, AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS, 745: 140972, (2020).