Environments Program

Land managers representing National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service, Navajo Nation, private ranches and farms attend the first RestoreNet stakeholder meeting at the USGS Southwest Biological Science Center in February 2020. 

RAMPS expands drought adaptation project with national parks in the 4-Corners area. National parks across the desert Southwest are experiencing ecological impacts due to climate change. Since late 2018, USGS RAMPS scientists have been working with Southeast Utah Group of national parks to better understand climate change impacts and build a suite of science-driven

RAMPS met with DOI Office of Wildland Fire, US Customs and Border Patrol, and US Fish & Wildlife Service staff at Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in southern AZ last November. The group is developing tools to reduce wildfire risk, conserve wildlife habitat and natural resources, and increase safety and security of border operations.

A USGS Hydrologic Technician collects eDNA samples alongside a stream in the Nevada wilderness

The USGS Ecosystems Mission Area brings you Outstanding in the Field, a series of stories about our science, our adventures, and our efforts to better understand our fish and wildlife and the ecosystems that support them. In this episode we describe the USGS’s efforts to track frog populations in the southeast United States. 
 

Two red sea urchins (Mesocentrotus franciscanus) sit on the deck of the R/V Falkor. These sea urchins were collected during the #HuntingBubbles research cruise led by the USGS and Schmidt Ocean Institute, which focused on exploring and understanding methane seeps and the communities that depend on them along the Cascadia Margin. Read more about the cruise and its

Thinning rangelands by removing trees such as juniper is a common mangement action done across the intermountain west. The goals of this type of vegetation treatment typically are to increase forage and habitat for grazing animals, improve soil conditions, and/or reduce risks of catastrophic fire. In this photo, skeletons leftover from a chaining treatment dot a range in

At a celebration of World Wetlands Day, Victoria Sagrera taught students about various wetland types, including swamp, marsh, and barrier islands, and the resources and animals found in each.

USGS Wetland and Aquatic Research Center's Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act (CWPPRA) outreach office staff were on hand at the World Wetlands Day celebration hosted by the Bayou Terrebonne Waterlife Museum and South Louisiana Wetlands Discovery Center as local students learned about the different types of wetlands in Louisiana.

A special guest made an appearance at the 20th annual Louisiana Environmental Education Symposium where staff from the USGS Wetland and Aquatic Research Center's Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act (CWPPRA) outreach office shared materials and information with teachers.

Drone footage of a prescribed fire at Tall Timbers Research Station, Tallahassee, Florida (April 19, 2017).