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New Tools for Modern Land Management Decisions

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By Southwest Biological Science Center September 18, 2023

In an era of rapid land use changes and shifting climates, it is imperative that land managers and policymakers have actionable and current information available for decision processes. In this work, we seek to meet these needs through new data products and decision support tools built on digital soil mapping, new vegetation cover maps, agency inventory and monitoring data sets, and cutting-edge analytical frameworks. By building on large databases of field observations, available remote sensing, and cloud computing, we are able to create new, decision-relevant information more quickly.

Ecological Site Group maps for the Upper Colorado River Basin

Ecological Site Group maps for the Upper Colorado River Basin

What determines the effectiveness of Pinyon-Juniper clearing treatments?

What determines the effectiveness of Pinyon-Juniper clearing treatments?

Background & Importance

An opportunity for achieving this is through analysis of past land management and actions. Here, we apply a technique from the econometric literature that can account for these unplanned actions, called the synthetic control, to assess landscape change and treatment effectiveness.

It is also important to connect existing and new scientific information to lands where decisions are being made. As an extension of our soil mapping work, we and partners from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) are mapping broad land units that share similar land potential & ecological dynamics and then developing synthesis information for the mapped units, including decision support tools.

Our current focus for these efforts is the Upper Colorado River Basin and fire fuels management, sage grouse habitats, and energy development.

 

Soil Property and Class Maps of the Conterminous United States at 100-Meter Spatial Resolution

Soil Property and Class Maps of the Conterminous United States at 100-Meter Spatial Resolution

30m Resolution soil maps for the Colorado River Basin

30m Resolution soil maps for the Colorado River Basin

Below are other science projects associated with this research.

link
Drill rig in the distance off a dirt road in a semi-aid system

Southwest Energy Exploration, Development, and Reclamation (SWEDR)

Approximately 35% of the US and approximately 82% of DOI lands are “drylands” found throughout the western US. These lands contain oil, gas, oil shale, shale oil, and tar sand deposits and the exploration for and extraction of these resources has resulted in hundreds of thousands of operating and abandoned wells across the West. These arid and semi-arid lands have unique soil and plant communities...
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Land Management Research Program, Species Management Research Program, Fort Collins Science Center, Southwest Biological Science Center, Western Geographic Science Center
link

Southwest Energy Exploration, Development, and Reclamation (SWEDR)

Approximately 35% of the US and approximately 82% of DOI lands are “drylands” found throughout the western US. These lands contain oil, gas, oil shale, shale oil, and tar sand deposits and the exploration for and extraction of these resources has resulted in hundreds of thousands of operating and abandoned wells across the West. These arid and semi-arid lands have unique soil and plant communities...
Learn More
link
Dust samplers near Hanksville, Utah

Wind Erosion and Dust Emissions on the Colorado Plateau

Wind erosion of soils and dust emissions are a significant resource management challenge on the Colorado Plateau. Loss of topsoil and associated aeolian sediment (wind-driven sediment) movement can lead to reduced soil fertility as well as abrasion and burial of vegetation. Dust in the atmosphere poses a threat to human health, visual resources, and regional water supplies (due to interactions...
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Southwest Biological Science Center
link

Wind Erosion and Dust Emissions on the Colorado Plateau

Wind erosion of soils and dust emissions are a significant resource management challenge on the Colorado Plateau. Loss of topsoil and associated aeolian sediment (wind-driven sediment) movement can lead to reduced soil fertility as well as abrasion and burial of vegetation. Dust in the atmosphere poses a threat to human health, visual resources, and regional water supplies (due to interactions...
Learn More

Below are USGS data associated with this research.

Aeolian mass flux data for the Colorado Plateau

These data were compiled to measure airborne horizontal mass flux of sediments moved by wind across soils, climates, vegetation types, and land uses on the Colorado Plateau. Objectives of our study were to quantify spatial and temporal patterns in wind erosion and further our understanding of how soil and site setting, climate, and land uses are controlling wind erosion and horizontal...
By
Southwest Biological Science Center

Geodatabase of oil and gas pads and roads within the Bureau of Land Management's Carlsbad Field Office administrative boundary, New Mexico

This database contains spatial data on the location, number, size and extent of energy-related surface disturbances within the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Carlsbad Field Office (CFO) administrative area. The BLM administers over 2 million acres of surface estate and 3 million acres of mineral estate in the southeastern portion of New Mexico. The BLM requires a thorough and...
By
Western Geographic Science Center

Soil family particle size class map for Colorado River Basin above Lake Mead

These data were compiled to support analysis of remote sensing data using the Disturbance Automated Reference Toolset (Nauman et al., 2017). The objective of our study was to assess results of pinyon and juniper land treatments. These data represent major soil types as defined primarily by soil texture and depth, but also geology, parent material, and geomorphology for relevant features...
By
Southwest Biological Science Center

Soil geomorphic unit and ecological site group maps for the rangelands of the Upper Colorado River Basin region

This data release includes maps characterizing soil geomorphic units (SGUs), climate zones, and ecological site groups that classify landscapes by ecological potential and behavior for use in land management in the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB) region. Soil geomorphic units were created by analysis and grouping of ecological sites (ESs), a more detailed local system of ecological...
By
Ecosystems Land Change Science Program, Southwest Biological Science Center

Predictive soil property maps with prediction uncertainty at 30-meter resolution for the Colorado River Basin above Lake Mead

These data were compiled to demonstrate new predictive mapping approaches and provide comprehensive gridded 30 meter resolution soil property maps for the Colorado River Basin above Hoover Dam. Random forest models related environmental raster layers representing soil forming factors with field samples to render predictive maps that interpolate between sample locations. Maps represented...
By
Ecosystems Land Change Science Program, Southwest Biological Science Center

5-year Relative Fractional Vegetation Cover at Abandoned Energy Development Sites on the Colorado Plateau

This data release contains a single vector shapefile and two text documents with code used to generate the data product. This vector shapefile contains the locations of 365 "plugged and abandoned" well sites from across the Colorado Plateau with their respective relative fractional vegetation cover (RFVC) values. Oil and gas pads are often developed for production, and then capped...
By
Western Geographic Science Center

Automated Reference Toolset (ART)Data

These environmental raster covariate, geospatial vector data, and tabular data were compiled as input data for the Automated Reference Toolset (ART) algorithm. These data are a subset of all the environmetal raster covariate data used in the ART algorithm. Users are advised to read the mansuscript, associated with these data and identified as the larger work citation. It is recommended...
By
Southwest Biological Science Center

Below are publications associated with this research.

Filter Total Items: 26

The Landscape Data Commons: A system for standardizing, accessing, and applying large environmental datasets for agroecosystem research and management

Understanding where, when, and why agroecosystems are changing requires quality information about ecosystems that span land tenure, ecological processes, and spatial scales. Over the past two decades, land management agencies and research groups have adopted a suite of standardized methods for monitoring rangelands, which have been implemented at over 85,000 monitoring locations globally...
Authors
Sarah E. McCord, Nicholas P. Webb, Brandon T. Bestelmeyer, Kristopher Bonefont, Joseph R. Brehm, Joel R. Brown, Ericha M. Courtright, Christopher Dietrich, Michael C. Duniway, Brandon L. Edwards, Christopher Fraser, Jeffrey E. Herrick, Anna C. Knight, Loretta J Metz, Justin W. Van Zee, Craig E. Tweedie
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Southwest Biological Science Center

Biophysical factors control invasive annual grass hot spots in the Mojave Desert

Invasive annual grasses can promote ecosystem state changes and habitat loss in the American Southwest. Non-native annual grasses such as Bromus spp. and Schismus spp. have invaded the Mojave Desert and degraded habitat through increased fire occurrence, severity, and shifting plant community composition. Thus, it is important to identify and characterize the areas where persistent...
Authors
Tanner Corless Smith, Tara B.B. Bishop, Michael C. Duniway, Miguel L. Villarreal, Anna C. Knight, Seth M. Munson, Eric K. Waller, Ryan Jensen, Richard A. Gill
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Climate Adaptation Science Centers, Ecosystems Land Change Science Program, Southwest Biological Science Center, Western Geographic Science Center

Synergistic soil, land use, and climate influences on wind erosion on the Colorado Plateau: Implications for management

Two decades of drought in the southwestern USA are spurring concerns about increases in wind erosion, dust emissions, and associated impacts on ecosystems, agriculture, human health, and water supply. Different avenues of investigation into primary drivers of wind erosion and dust have yielded mixed results depending on the spatial and temporal sensitivity of the evidence. We monitored...
Authors
Travis W. Nauman, Seth M. Munson, Saroj Dhital, Nicholas P. Webb, Michael C. Duniway
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Ecosystems Land Change Science Program, Southwest Biological Science Center

Livestock removal increases plant cover across a heterogeneous dryland landscape on the Colorado Plateau

Livestock removal is increasingly used as a management option to mitigate the negative impacts of grazing-related disturbances on rangelands. Removal generally increases plant cover, but it is unclear when, where, and by how much plant and soil cover changes can be expected. On the Colorado Plateau, complex geology, topography, soils, and climate all interact to mediate the relationship...
Authors
Brandon E McNellis, Anna C. Knight, Travis W. Nauman, Samuel Norton Chambers, C.W. Brungard, S.E. Fick, C.G. Livensperger, C.G. Borthwick, Michael C. Duniway
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Ecosystems Land Change Science Program, Southwest Biological Science Center, Western Geographic Science Center

Assessing vegetation recovery from energy development using a dynamic reference approach

Ecologically relevant references are useful for evaluating ecosystem recovery, but references that are temporally static may be less useful when environmental conditions and disturbances are spatially and temporally heterogeneous. This challenge is particularly acute for ecosystems dominated by sagebrush (Artemisia spp.), where communities may require decades to recover from disturbance...
Authors
Adrian P. Monroe, Travis W. Nauman, Cameron L. Aldridge, Michael S. O'Donnell, Michael C. Duniway, Brian S. Cade, Daniel Manier, Patrick J. Anderson
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Fort Collins Science Center, Southwest Biological Science Center

Guiding principles for using satellite-derived maps in rangeland management

On the GroundRangeland management has entered a new era with the accessibility and advancement of satellite-derived maps.Maps provide a comprehensive view of rangelands in space and time, and challenge us to think critically about natural variability.Here, we advance the practice of using satellite-derived maps with four guiding principles designed to increase end user confidence and...
Authors
Brady W Allred, Megan K Creutzburg, John C Carlson, Christopher C Cole, Colin M. Dovichin, Michael C. Duniway, Matthew O. Jones, Jeremy D Maestas, David E. Naugle, Travis W. Nauman, Gregory S Okin, Matthew C Reeves, Matthew B. Rigge, Shannon L Savage, Dirac Twidwell, Daniel R. Uden, Bo Zhou
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center , Southwest Biological Science Center

A quantitative soil-geomorphic framework for developing and mapping ecological site groups

Land management decisions need context about how landscapes will respond to different circumstances or actions. As ecologists’ understanding of nonlinear ecological dynamics has evolved into state-and-transition models (STMs), they have put more emphasis on defining and mapping the soil, geomorphological, and climate parameters that mediate these dynamics. The US Department of...
Authors
Travis W. Nauman, Samuel S Burch, Joel T. Humphries, Anna C. Knight, Michael C. Duniway
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Ecosystems Land Change Science Program, Southwest Biological Science Center

What determines the effectiveness of Pinyon-Juniper clearing treatments? Evidence from the remote sensing archive and counter-factual scenarios

In the intermountain western US, expansion of Pinyon (Pinus edulis) and Juniper (Juniperus spp.) woodlands (PJ) into grasslands and shrublands is a pervasive phenomenon, and an example of the global trend towards enhanced woody growth in drylands. Due to the perceived impacts of these expansions on ecosystem services related to biodiversity, hydrology, soil stability, fire prevention...
Authors
Stephen E. Fick, Travis W. Nauman, Colby C. Brungard, Michael C. Duniway
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Ecosystems Land Change Science Program, Southwest Biological Science Center

Sampling design workflows and tools to support adaptive monitoring and management

On the Ground• Adaptive land management requires monitoring of resource conditions, which requires choices about where and when to monitor a landscape.• Designing a sampling design for a monitoring program can be broken down in to eight steps: identifying questions, defining objectives, selecting reporting units, deciding data collection methods, defining the sample frame, selecting an...
Authors
Nelson G. Stauffer, Michael C. Duniway, Jason W. Karl, Travis W. Nauman
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Southwest Biological Science Center

Regional ensemble modeling reduces uncertainty for digital soil mapping

Recent country and continental-scale digital soil mapping efforts have used a single model to predict soil properties across large regions. However, different ecophysiographic regions within large-extent areas are likely to have different soil-landscape relationships so models built specifically for these regions may more accurately capture these relationships relative to a ‘global’...
Authors
Colby C. Brungard, Travis W. Nauman, Michael C. Duniway, Kari E. Veblen, Kyle C. Nehring, David S. White, Shawn W. Salley, Julius Anchang
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Ecosystems Land Change Science Program, Land Change Science Program, Southwest Biological Science Center

Evaluating natural experiments in ecology: Using synthetic controls in assessments of remotely sensed land treatments

Many important ecological phenomena occur on large spatial scales and/or are unplanned and thus do not easily fit within analytical frameworks that rely on randomization, replication, and interspersed a priori controls for statistical comparison. Analyses of such large‐scale, natural experiments are common in the health and econometrics literature, where techniques have been developed to...
Authors
Stephen E. Fick, Travis W. Nauman, Colby C. Brungard, Michael C. Duniway
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Ecosystems Land Change Science Program, Land Change Science Program, Southwest Biological Science Center

A hybrid approach for predictive soil property mapping using conventional soil survey data

Soil property maps are important for land management and earth systems modeling. A new hybrid point-disaggregation predictive soil property mapping strategy improved mapping in the Colorado River Basin, and can be applied to other areas with similar data (e.g. conterminous United States). This new approach increased sample size ~6-fold over past efforts. Random forests related...
Authors
Travis W. Nauman, Michael C. Duniway
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Southwest Biological Science Center
New USGS data-driven tools can aid restoration of mine lands across America

New USGS data-driven tools can aid restoration of mine lands across America

A suite of newly released tools can be used to help locate, study and restore mine lands.

Read Article

Below are the partners associated with this research.

National Park Service (NPS)

U.S. Bureau of Land Management

U.S. Forest Service (USFS)

US Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)

Utah Valley University

In an era of rapid land use changes and shifting climates, it is imperative that land managers and policymakers have actionable and current information available for decision processes. In this work, we seek to meet these needs through new data products and decision support tools built on digital soil mapping, new vegetation cover maps, agency inventory and monitoring data sets, and cutting-edge analytical frameworks. By building on large databases of field observations, available remote sensing, and cloud computing, we are able to create new, decision-relevant information more quickly.

Ecological Site Group maps for the Upper Colorado River Basin

Ecological Site Group maps for the Upper Colorado River Basin

What determines the effectiveness of Pinyon-Juniper clearing treatments?

What determines the effectiveness of Pinyon-Juniper clearing treatments?

Background & Importance

An opportunity for achieving this is through analysis of past land management and actions. Here, we apply a technique from the econometric literature that can account for these unplanned actions, called the synthetic control, to assess landscape change and treatment effectiveness.

It is also important to connect existing and new scientific information to lands where decisions are being made. As an extension of our soil mapping work, we and partners from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) are mapping broad land units that share similar land potential & ecological dynamics and then developing synthesis information for the mapped units, including decision support tools.

Our current focus for these efforts is the Upper Colorado River Basin and fire fuels management, sage grouse habitats, and energy development.

 

Soil Property and Class Maps of the Conterminous United States at 100-Meter Spatial Resolution

Soil Property and Class Maps of the Conterminous United States at 100-Meter Spatial Resolution

30m Resolution soil maps for the Colorado River Basin

30m Resolution soil maps for the Colorado River Basin

Below are other science projects associated with this research.

link
Drill rig in the distance off a dirt road in a semi-aid system

Southwest Energy Exploration, Development, and Reclamation (SWEDR)

Approximately 35% of the US and approximately 82% of DOI lands are “drylands” found throughout the western US. These lands contain oil, gas, oil shale, shale oil, and tar sand deposits and the exploration for and extraction of these resources has resulted in hundreds of thousands of operating and abandoned wells across the West. These arid and semi-arid lands have unique soil and plant communities...
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Land Management Research Program, Species Management Research Program, Fort Collins Science Center, Southwest Biological Science Center, Western Geographic Science Center
link

Southwest Energy Exploration, Development, and Reclamation (SWEDR)

Approximately 35% of the US and approximately 82% of DOI lands are “drylands” found throughout the western US. These lands contain oil, gas, oil shale, shale oil, and tar sand deposits and the exploration for and extraction of these resources has resulted in hundreds of thousands of operating and abandoned wells across the West. These arid and semi-arid lands have unique soil and plant communities...
Learn More
link
Dust samplers near Hanksville, Utah

Wind Erosion and Dust Emissions on the Colorado Plateau

Wind erosion of soils and dust emissions are a significant resource management challenge on the Colorado Plateau. Loss of topsoil and associated aeolian sediment (wind-driven sediment) movement can lead to reduced soil fertility as well as abrasion and burial of vegetation. Dust in the atmosphere poses a threat to human health, visual resources, and regional water supplies (due to interactions...
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Southwest Biological Science Center
link

Wind Erosion and Dust Emissions on the Colorado Plateau

Wind erosion of soils and dust emissions are a significant resource management challenge on the Colorado Plateau. Loss of topsoil and associated aeolian sediment (wind-driven sediment) movement can lead to reduced soil fertility as well as abrasion and burial of vegetation. Dust in the atmosphere poses a threat to human health, visual resources, and regional water supplies (due to interactions...
Learn More

Below are USGS data associated with this research.

Aeolian mass flux data for the Colorado Plateau

These data were compiled to measure airborne horizontal mass flux of sediments moved by wind across soils, climates, vegetation types, and land uses on the Colorado Plateau. Objectives of our study were to quantify spatial and temporal patterns in wind erosion and further our understanding of how soil and site setting, climate, and land uses are controlling wind erosion and horizontal...
By
Southwest Biological Science Center

Geodatabase of oil and gas pads and roads within the Bureau of Land Management's Carlsbad Field Office administrative boundary, New Mexico

This database contains spatial data on the location, number, size and extent of energy-related surface disturbances within the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Carlsbad Field Office (CFO) administrative area. The BLM administers over 2 million acres of surface estate and 3 million acres of mineral estate in the southeastern portion of New Mexico. The BLM requires a thorough and...
By
Western Geographic Science Center

Soil family particle size class map for Colorado River Basin above Lake Mead

These data were compiled to support analysis of remote sensing data using the Disturbance Automated Reference Toolset (Nauman et al., 2017). The objective of our study was to assess results of pinyon and juniper land treatments. These data represent major soil types as defined primarily by soil texture and depth, but also geology, parent material, and geomorphology for relevant features...
By
Southwest Biological Science Center

Soil geomorphic unit and ecological site group maps for the rangelands of the Upper Colorado River Basin region

This data release includes maps characterizing soil geomorphic units (SGUs), climate zones, and ecological site groups that classify landscapes by ecological potential and behavior for use in land management in the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB) region. Soil geomorphic units were created by analysis and grouping of ecological sites (ESs), a more detailed local system of ecological...
By
Ecosystems Land Change Science Program, Southwest Biological Science Center

Predictive soil property maps with prediction uncertainty at 30-meter resolution for the Colorado River Basin above Lake Mead

These data were compiled to demonstrate new predictive mapping approaches and provide comprehensive gridded 30 meter resolution soil property maps for the Colorado River Basin above Hoover Dam. Random forest models related environmental raster layers representing soil forming factors with field samples to render predictive maps that interpolate between sample locations. Maps represented...
By
Ecosystems Land Change Science Program, Southwest Biological Science Center

5-year Relative Fractional Vegetation Cover at Abandoned Energy Development Sites on the Colorado Plateau

This data release contains a single vector shapefile and two text documents with code used to generate the data product. This vector shapefile contains the locations of 365 "plugged and abandoned" well sites from across the Colorado Plateau with their respective relative fractional vegetation cover (RFVC) values. Oil and gas pads are often developed for production, and then capped...
By
Western Geographic Science Center

Automated Reference Toolset (ART)Data

These environmental raster covariate, geospatial vector data, and tabular data were compiled as input data for the Automated Reference Toolset (ART) algorithm. These data are a subset of all the environmetal raster covariate data used in the ART algorithm. Users are advised to read the mansuscript, associated with these data and identified as the larger work citation. It is recommended...
By
Southwest Biological Science Center

Below are publications associated with this research.

Filter Total Items: 26

The Landscape Data Commons: A system for standardizing, accessing, and applying large environmental datasets for agroecosystem research and management

Understanding where, when, and why agroecosystems are changing requires quality information about ecosystems that span land tenure, ecological processes, and spatial scales. Over the past two decades, land management agencies and research groups have adopted a suite of standardized methods for monitoring rangelands, which have been implemented at over 85,000 monitoring locations globally...
Authors
Sarah E. McCord, Nicholas P. Webb, Brandon T. Bestelmeyer, Kristopher Bonefont, Joseph R. Brehm, Joel R. Brown, Ericha M. Courtright, Christopher Dietrich, Michael C. Duniway, Brandon L. Edwards, Christopher Fraser, Jeffrey E. Herrick, Anna C. Knight, Loretta J Metz, Justin W. Van Zee, Craig E. Tweedie
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Southwest Biological Science Center

Biophysical factors control invasive annual grass hot spots in the Mojave Desert

Invasive annual grasses can promote ecosystem state changes and habitat loss in the American Southwest. Non-native annual grasses such as Bromus spp. and Schismus spp. have invaded the Mojave Desert and degraded habitat through increased fire occurrence, severity, and shifting plant community composition. Thus, it is important to identify and characterize the areas where persistent...
Authors
Tanner Corless Smith, Tara B.B. Bishop, Michael C. Duniway, Miguel L. Villarreal, Anna C. Knight, Seth M. Munson, Eric K. Waller, Ryan Jensen, Richard A. Gill
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Climate Adaptation Science Centers, Ecosystems Land Change Science Program, Southwest Biological Science Center, Western Geographic Science Center

Synergistic soil, land use, and climate influences on wind erosion on the Colorado Plateau: Implications for management

Two decades of drought in the southwestern USA are spurring concerns about increases in wind erosion, dust emissions, and associated impacts on ecosystems, agriculture, human health, and water supply. Different avenues of investigation into primary drivers of wind erosion and dust have yielded mixed results depending on the spatial and temporal sensitivity of the evidence. We monitored...
Authors
Travis W. Nauman, Seth M. Munson, Saroj Dhital, Nicholas P. Webb, Michael C. Duniway
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Ecosystems Land Change Science Program, Southwest Biological Science Center

Livestock removal increases plant cover across a heterogeneous dryland landscape on the Colorado Plateau

Livestock removal is increasingly used as a management option to mitigate the negative impacts of grazing-related disturbances on rangelands. Removal generally increases plant cover, but it is unclear when, where, and by how much plant and soil cover changes can be expected. On the Colorado Plateau, complex geology, topography, soils, and climate all interact to mediate the relationship...
Authors
Brandon E McNellis, Anna C. Knight, Travis W. Nauman, Samuel Norton Chambers, C.W. Brungard, S.E. Fick, C.G. Livensperger, C.G. Borthwick, Michael C. Duniway
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Ecosystems Land Change Science Program, Southwest Biological Science Center, Western Geographic Science Center

Assessing vegetation recovery from energy development using a dynamic reference approach

Ecologically relevant references are useful for evaluating ecosystem recovery, but references that are temporally static may be less useful when environmental conditions and disturbances are spatially and temporally heterogeneous. This challenge is particularly acute for ecosystems dominated by sagebrush (Artemisia spp.), where communities may require decades to recover from disturbance...
Authors
Adrian P. Monroe, Travis W. Nauman, Cameron L. Aldridge, Michael S. O'Donnell, Michael C. Duniway, Brian S. Cade, Daniel Manier, Patrick J. Anderson
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Fort Collins Science Center, Southwest Biological Science Center

Guiding principles for using satellite-derived maps in rangeland management

On the GroundRangeland management has entered a new era with the accessibility and advancement of satellite-derived maps.Maps provide a comprehensive view of rangelands in space and time, and challenge us to think critically about natural variability.Here, we advance the practice of using satellite-derived maps with four guiding principles designed to increase end user confidence and...
Authors
Brady W Allred, Megan K Creutzburg, John C Carlson, Christopher C Cole, Colin M. Dovichin, Michael C. Duniway, Matthew O. Jones, Jeremy D Maestas, David E. Naugle, Travis W. Nauman, Gregory S Okin, Matthew C Reeves, Matthew B. Rigge, Shannon L Savage, Dirac Twidwell, Daniel R. Uden, Bo Zhou
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center , Southwest Biological Science Center

A quantitative soil-geomorphic framework for developing and mapping ecological site groups

Land management decisions need context about how landscapes will respond to different circumstances or actions. As ecologists’ understanding of nonlinear ecological dynamics has evolved into state-and-transition models (STMs), they have put more emphasis on defining and mapping the soil, geomorphological, and climate parameters that mediate these dynamics. The US Department of...
Authors
Travis W. Nauman, Samuel S Burch, Joel T. Humphries, Anna C. Knight, Michael C. Duniway
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Ecosystems Land Change Science Program, Southwest Biological Science Center

What determines the effectiveness of Pinyon-Juniper clearing treatments? Evidence from the remote sensing archive and counter-factual scenarios

In the intermountain western US, expansion of Pinyon (Pinus edulis) and Juniper (Juniperus spp.) woodlands (PJ) into grasslands and shrublands is a pervasive phenomenon, and an example of the global trend towards enhanced woody growth in drylands. Due to the perceived impacts of these expansions on ecosystem services related to biodiversity, hydrology, soil stability, fire prevention...
Authors
Stephen E. Fick, Travis W. Nauman, Colby C. Brungard, Michael C. Duniway
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Ecosystems Land Change Science Program, Southwest Biological Science Center

Sampling design workflows and tools to support adaptive monitoring and management

On the Ground• Adaptive land management requires monitoring of resource conditions, which requires choices about where and when to monitor a landscape.• Designing a sampling design for a monitoring program can be broken down in to eight steps: identifying questions, defining objectives, selecting reporting units, deciding data collection methods, defining the sample frame, selecting an...
Authors
Nelson G. Stauffer, Michael C. Duniway, Jason W. Karl, Travis W. Nauman
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Southwest Biological Science Center

Regional ensemble modeling reduces uncertainty for digital soil mapping

Recent country and continental-scale digital soil mapping efforts have used a single model to predict soil properties across large regions. However, different ecophysiographic regions within large-extent areas are likely to have different soil-landscape relationships so models built specifically for these regions may more accurately capture these relationships relative to a ‘global’...
Authors
Colby C. Brungard, Travis W. Nauman, Michael C. Duniway, Kari E. Veblen, Kyle C. Nehring, David S. White, Shawn W. Salley, Julius Anchang
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Ecosystems Land Change Science Program, Land Change Science Program, Southwest Biological Science Center

Evaluating natural experiments in ecology: Using synthetic controls in assessments of remotely sensed land treatments

Many important ecological phenomena occur on large spatial scales and/or are unplanned and thus do not easily fit within analytical frameworks that rely on randomization, replication, and interspersed a priori controls for statistical comparison. Analyses of such large‐scale, natural experiments are common in the health and econometrics literature, where techniques have been developed to...
Authors
Stephen E. Fick, Travis W. Nauman, Colby C. Brungard, Michael C. Duniway
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Ecosystems Land Change Science Program, Land Change Science Program, Southwest Biological Science Center

A hybrid approach for predictive soil property mapping using conventional soil survey data

Soil property maps are important for land management and earth systems modeling. A new hybrid point-disaggregation predictive soil property mapping strategy improved mapping in the Colorado River Basin, and can be applied to other areas with similar data (e.g. conterminous United States). This new approach increased sample size ~6-fold over past efforts. Random forests related...
Authors
Travis W. Nauman, Michael C. Duniway
By
Ecosystems Mission Area, Southwest Biological Science Center
New USGS data-driven tools can aid restoration of mine lands across America

New USGS data-driven tools can aid restoration of mine lands across America

A suite of newly released tools can be used to help locate, study and restore mine lands.

Read Article

Below are the partners associated with this research.

National Park Service (NPS)

U.S. Bureau of Land Management

U.S. Forest Service (USFS)

US Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station

USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)

Utah Valley University

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