Great Basin Integrated Landscape Monitoring (GBILM) Pilot

Ecologically, the Great Basin is a semi-arid landscape, with a rich mosaic of shrublands, grasslands, and mountain-associated forests that are interspersed with rare, critical wetlands, aquatic resources, and riparian areas. Many of the basin’s ecological communities and wildlife populations are rare or unique because of their patchy distribution, isolation, and response to climate, but others are rare or imperiled because of direct and indirect effects of human activities.

The Great Basin includes over 111 million acres of land and water in five western states. Almost 80 percent of these lands are under public ownership, with 80 percent of the public land managed by one agency, the Bureau of Land Management. Most people recognize the basin hydrologically as a region of interior drainages, but we also included the Columbia Plateau, which drains to the Columbia River and on to the Pacific Ocean. The decision to include the Columbia Plateau is based on similarities with the Great Basin in climate, physiography, vegetation, and management issues.

Focal Areas

Because the Great Basin is so large and diverse, GBILM pilot projects are starting in a common focal area spanning eastern Nevada and western Utah, with plans to expand and extrapolate results more broadly across the Great Basin. This focal area captures the region's topographical gradients, ecological components, priority management issues, and DOI partner interests including those of Bureau of Land Management (Nevada and Utah), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Great Basin National Park. Field visits and consultation with appropriate personnel in the focal region have been initiated to identify, acquire, and compile existing data.