Toward Sustainable Land Use: Exploratory Spatial Analysis of Conservation Reserve Program Participation in the U.S. Midwest

Since the start of the U.S. Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) in 1985, producers have enrolled environmentally sensitive land in exchange for annual rental payments, supporting multiple dimensions of sustainability through reduced soil loss, improved water quality, enhanced habitat provision, and strengthened climate resilience through land stewardship. Recent declines in enrollment raise concerns about whether participation remains spatially aligned with local environmental need and economic incentives. This study examines regional variation in CRP participation and its sustainability implications by identifying spatial patterns in participation and key drivers using exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA). We analyze county-level CRP participation rates alongside three key drivers (CRP rental rates, soil erosion risk on cultivated cropland, and farm income) and assess spatial dependence using Global Moran’s I, univariate Local Indicators of Spatial Association (LISA), and bivariate LISA (BiLISA). Framed as an assessment of agri-environmental policy effectiveness for sustainable land management, the framework is applied to counties in the U.S. Midwest, a region with historically substantial CRP enrollment. Global Moran’s I statistics indicate significant positive spatial autocorrelation for CRP participation (I = 0.491), CRP rental rates (I = 0.892), and soil erosion (I = 0.503), confirming pronounced regional clustering across Midwestern counties. LISA results further show that more than 60% of counties fall into high–high (HH) or low–low (LL) clusters for CRP rental rates, while BiLISA results indicate that 22.9% of counties form HH clusters between CRP participation and soil erosion, suggesting only partial alignment between CRP participation and the environmental need. These findings indicate that the environmental benefits of CRP may vary across the region depending on where participation occurs. Overall, the findings support a shift toward a data-driven, spatially explicit CRP strategy that integrates environmental risk, economic incentives, and regional context to strengthen sustainability outcomes and enhance environmental effectiveness, economic efficiency, and the spatial equity of conservation benefits in the United States.