Tile-drained acreage is increasing in northern areas of the United States

Respondents to the 2022 Census of Agriculture reported the amount of their farm acreage that was drained by tile. Tile drainage, also called subsurface drainage, is a land use practice typically used to lower the water table and remove excess soil water from cropland in order to ensure timely planting and reduce crop stress. It is also used to remove salts from the soil subsurface in heavily irrigated regions. From 2012 to 2022, hundreds of counties across the continental United States experienced increases in the proportion of cropland acreage that is tile-drained, with the most substantial increases largely occurring in counties located in northern latitudes of the Midwest and Northeast. Counties across the plains of eastern South Dakota, southern and western Minnesota, eastern Wisconsin, eastern and central Michigan, and northern New York saw increases in their shares of tile-drained cropland by 8 percentage points or more. Counties across Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana—States that already had prominent drainage infrastructure in 2012—also saw significant increases. This chart is taken from the ERS report Tile Drainage Systems Management and Conservation, published September 2026.