Expert suggestions for fostering greater habitat model use in public lands management, elicited through surveys and workshops in 2024

Habitat models can help inform land management, but are not always used where they could be most helpful. In this study, researchers aimed to identify specific actions that could foster greater use of habitat models for managing rare and invasive plants on public lands. The researchers gathered data through surveys and expert elicitation workshops with modelers and model users. One workshop focused on management of rare plants and the other focused on management of invasive plants. The workshops included collaborative activities aimed at identifying broad solutions and specific actions for overcoming challenges related to using habitat models. This data release includes: the anonymized, paraphrased survey responses (SurveyResponses_UHM.csv) from Federal workshop participants who were asked to describe their experiences using or developing habitat models for public lands management; and anonymized results from both workshops, including a breakdown of workshop participant roles and organizations (WorkshopParticipants_UHM.csv), broad solutions for fostering greater model use in public lands management (BroadSolutions_UHM.csv), specific actions related to the broad solutions and dot voting results on which actions participants viewed as feasible or important (SpecificActions_UHM.csv), and written responses related to workshop goals, takeaways, and potential next steps (Notecards_UHM.csv).