Data Management and Delivery
Data Management and Delivery
It is a difficult task to determine the desirable environmental targets for aquatic resource managers, because of a myriad of physical, hydrological, and biological processes affecting aquatic ecosystems and hydroscapes, the complexity of interactions and the multifaceted information, and substantial levels of uncertainty. Computer-based Decision Support Systems (DSS) can help integrate and communicate scientific information and analyses, and thus provide support tools for decisionmaking. The AS Branch is working on DSS development to generate spatially explicit indices of habitat suitability for various flow scenarios.
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A user-friendly decision support tool for monitoring and managing greater sage-grouse populations
Researchers within the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Colorado State University (CSU) worked with BLM and State Wildlife Agencies to develop a hierarchical population monitoring framework for managing greater sage-grouse ( Centrocercus urophasianus ) populations and the sagebrush ecosystems that they depend upon for survival and reproduction. This hierarchical population monitoring strategy now...
Hierarchical Population Monitoring Framework for Greater Sage-Grouse
Greater sage-grouse ( Centrocercus urophasianus ) are at the center of state and national land use policies largely because of their unique life-history traits as an ecological indicator for health of sagebrush ecosystems. Researchers within the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Colorado State University (CSU) worked with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and state wildlife agencies to develop a...
A targeted annual warning system (TAWS) for identifying aberrant declines in greater sage-grouse populations
Land and wildlife managers require accurate estimates of sensitive species’ trends to help guide conservation decisions that maintain biodiversity and promote healthy ecosystems. Researchers within the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Colorado State University (CSU) worked with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and State Wildlife Agencies to develop a hierarchical population monitoring...
Fostering greater use of habitat models for managing rare and invasive plants on public lands
Habitat models can provide critical information on the current and potential distribution of plant species, as well as help target and support conservation efforts. Despite their potential utility in public land management, model use may be constrained by a variety of factors including staff access to and trust in models. In this project, we seek to bring together model users and model developers...
Wild horse and livestock influences on vegetation and wildlife in sagebrush ecosystems: Implications for refining and validating Appropriate Management Level (AML)
USGS researchers are conducting a comprehensive study of wild horse and livestock records across the greater sage-grouse range to investigate impacts on vegetation and wildlife (specifically, sage-grouse and songbirds). Researchers will use these results to evaluate Appropriate Management Levels for wild horse and burros, and projections of vegetation productivity under a changing climate.
Mapping Grassland Bird Community Distribution under a Changing Climate
Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service, and Oklahoma State University are studying the distribution of grassland bird communities across the western Great Plains to anticipate how species distributions may respond to a changing climate.
SageDAT: Data and Tools To Support Collaborative Sagebrush Ecosystem Conservation and Management
The USGS, the BLM, the FWS, and the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies have developed of a new DOI-funded effort, known as SageDAT.
Data and Project Management
The USGS and partner agencies maintain millions of datasets in many thousands of collections. Designing systems to document, catalog, analyze, and distribute these datasets requires expert computer science skills coupled with close coordination of data generators and users. To support these efforts, the Information Science Branch developed project tracking web applications that help Centers manage...
Data Integration Frameworks
Assembling data and presenting it in a meaningful way becomes increasingly important as natural resource issues span larger and larger geographic, political, organizational, and scientific boundaries. The Information Science Branch helps design, develop, and implement applications that allow USGS Centers, programs, and projects to securely store, document, integrate, and share datasets. These...
North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat)
North American bats face unprecedented threats including habitat loss and fragmentation, white-nose syndrome, wind energy development, and climate change. However, it is difficult to evaluate the impacts of these threats due to a lack of basic information about the distribution and abundance of bats across the continent. Although bat monitoring has long been conducted in individual areas and for...
Observation and Monitoring Networks
National observation and monitoring networks, regardless of their target observation type, share many common needs. Not the least of these needs is the data assembly framework employed by the network - the flow of many types of collected data into a common processing, analysis, and visualization engine. The Information Science Branch uses experiences from similar software and infrastructure...
Information Architecture
True data integration across many databases and projects requires new thinking about the design of data collection and distribution applications. Working with multiple USGS partners, the Information Science Branch researched and designed a new approach to software development and deployment that maintains function-based containers connected by web services. This component approach provides...