Monitoring
- Restoring & managing “Emerald Isles”
- Strategic, multi-scale approach for managing threats to sagebrush ecosystems based on resilience and resistance concepts
The Society for Range Management’s 71st Annual Meeting, Technical Training and Trade Show was at the Nugget Hotel in Sparks, Nevada. The theme for the 2018 conference was Empowerment through Applied Science.
Many inventory and assessment projects spanning large landscapes, the entire Great Basin, or the western US, have been completed recently or are underway for key natural resources. This special session of the 4th Great Basin Consortium Conference brought together leaders of these efforts to compare/contrast their efforts and create a synthesis product or “table of contents” for geospatial data users.
Geospatial presentations in pdf format are provided below:
- Landscape conservation management and analysis portal, Sean Finn USFS, GNLCC
- Rapid ecological assessment of the Northern and Central Basin and Range, Nika Lepak, BLM
- Fire and Invasives Tool, Mike Pellant, BLM
- Land Treatment Digital Library, David Pilliod, USGS
- Conservation Efforts Database, Justin Welty, USGS
- Landscape Toolbox and JournalMap, Bob Unnasch, TNC
- Remote sensing characterization of GB shrub and grasslands for monitoring, Collin Homer
- BLM Riparian Toolbar, Ken McGwire, DRI
- Geospatial weather sources, Stuart Hardegree, ARS
- Development and use of seed zones in native plant restoration, Francis Kilkenny, RMRS
- NorWEST Stream Temperature, Dan Isaak, RMRS
- Forest Inventory and Analysis, Chris Witt, FS
- Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring Strategy, Nika Lepak, BLM
- Sagebrush ecosystem response to changing climate and disturbance: an ecohydrological perspective, John Bradford, USGS
- Small mammal thermal mapping, Erik Beever, USGS
The Great Basin Fire Science Exchange and Nevada Partners for Conservation and Development co-hosted this workshop that addressed maintenance of intact sagebrush communities in the face of multiple ecological stressors.
Workshop presentations available in pdf format:
- Needs assessment synthesis and workshop intro – Génie MontBlanc, University of Nevada, Reno
- Vegetation resilience and the importance of the herbaceous understory –Jeanne Chambers, US Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station
- Vegetation monitoring and issues of scale – Pat Shaver, USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service
- Defining an intact sagebrush community – Brad Schultz, University of Nevada Cooperative Extension
- Current status of ungulates in sagebrush systems and managing for healthy populations – Tony Wasley, Nevada Department of Wildlife
- Wildlife/habitat relationships within the intact sagebrush-grass continuum – Kent McAdoo, University of Nevada Cooperative Extension
- Managing habitats for sage-grouse: do we need a sagebrush management decision support tool? – Clinton McCarthy, USDA Forest Service
- Collaboration in restoration – Lee Turner, Nevada Partners for Conservation and Development, Nevada Department of Wildlife
- Go big or go home: planning and implementing vegetation management projects at a meaningful scale – Paul Briggs, Bureau of Land Management
- Development and use of forbs in restoration – Scott Jensen, USDA Forest Service
- Synergistic monitoring project results and management implications – John Swanson, University of Nevada, Reno
This webinar covers basic quality assurance and quality control for Bureau of Land Management Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring (AIM) projects using the Database for Inventory Monitoring and Assessment (DIMA).
Workshop recordings.
Workshop series presented in Orlando, Florida at the SRM Annual Technical Conference were streamed live and recorded for archived use.
2/10/14 – Workshop 1: ESD Uses and Users, provides examples of ESD uses in diverse ecosystems throughout the United States. This workshop is a showcase of the increasing development and use of ESDs for all land types.
2/11/14 – Workshop 2: Unifying Concepts for Riparian Ecological Sites, focuses on advancing ESD concepts for riparian ecosystems, which differ from upland systems in the degree to which hydrology drives ecosystem dynamics. This riparian ESD workshop is part of a larger effort to advance the conceptual framework of ESDs in riparian systems, and will present the current state of RCESD concepts and provide opportunities for input from a broad audience.
View fact sheet.
The CONSERVATION EFFORTS DATABASE (CED) was codeveloped by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and the Great Northern Landscape Conservation Cooperative (GNLCC):
- USFWS provided a comprehensive ecological assessment separated by threats and efforts, and database structure based on user needs.
- USGS provided database and website design expertise building off of the Land Treatment Digital Library.
- GNLCC provided ecological, database, and GIS expertise, greatly enhancing CED capabilities.
Many state and federal partners provided input and feedback, ranging from design recommendations to policy sideboards, ensuring the CED has broad applicability and interoperability.
This chapter reviews some of the conceptual and technological advancements and provide examples of how they have influenced rangeland monitoring. It then discuss implications of these developments for rangeland management and highlight what are seen as challenges and opportunities for implementing effective rangeland monitoring. It concludes with a vision for how monitoring can contribute to rangeland information needs in the future.
View the guide.
The primary purpose of this guide is to serve as a tool for communicating potential particulate matter (PM2.5) levels during wildfire events using visual representation. Examples of visibility impairment under various levels of smoke concentration and humidity have been modeled using the WinHaze program.
Access catalog.
The USGS Science Data Catalog provides seamless access to USGS research and monitoring data from across the nation. Users have the ability to search, browse, or use a map-based interface to discover data.
View field guide.
This field guide identifies seven primary components that largely determine resilience to disturbance, as well as resistance to invasive grasses and plant succession following treatment of areas of concern. An evaluation score sheet is included for rating resilience to disturbance and resistance to invasive annual grasses and the probability of seeding success.