State and Transition Classifications for Ecological Sites in the Upper Colorado River Basin, USA

These data were compiled to support systematic analysis of ecological state and transition dynamics at the landscape scale in the Upper Colorado River Basin using published Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Ecological Site Descriptions (ESDs). Ecological sites are soil and climate-based classes of land that differ in potential plant communities and responses to disturbance and, therefore, use and management (Caudle et al., 2013). This includes ESDs that are correlated to soil map unit components mapped within the Upper Colorado River Basin, USA above Lake Mead and analyzed by Nauman et al. (2022), including areas of Utah, northern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, western Colorado, and southern Wyoming. The data represent systematic classifications of the states and transitions described in ESD State and Transition Models (STMs). ESD STMs are conceptual and capture ecological dynamics for ecological sites, including which plant communities are possible (the states) and how drivers of change or management actions can move system between states (the transitions; Caudle et al., 2013). Study objectives included cataloging of the site-specific understanding and knowledge represented by ESD STMs regarding which ecological states are considered 'reference', which are not reference, and what drivers of change or restoration and conservation approaches are associated with transitions between putative ecological states. In total, we have classified 308 ESDs and 791 associated ecological states and 933 transitions from these STMs. These data can be used to represent ecological state and transition dynamics across the Upper Colorado River Basin.