Statewide LESA Components

The Statewide LESA system consists of two components: the Land Evaluation (LE) component and the Site Assessment (SA) component. The design of this system is only applicable to cropland agriculture. It is not appropriate for evaluation of purely range or forested land types. When the LESA system is applied, the LE rating is combined with the SA rating to determine the total score of a specific parcel. The higher the total score, the more likely the parcel is suited to FRPP objectives.

Factors are used to label a group of attributes such as soil potential, agricultural productivity, or environmental benefit. Factor scale refers to the way points are assigned to a factor, i.e. 0 to 100 points. A factor rating is the value assigned to a particular parcel. Weight refers to the relative importance of the factor in the LESA system, i.e. a multiplier applied to a factor rating (for example, 0.0 to 1.0). Score is used to denote the total of all weighted factor ratings, i.e. a LESA score.

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