Ecosystem Services

The U.S. Geological Survey Southwest Biological Science Center (SBSC) is uniquely positioned in the Colorado River Basin to provide sound information, specialized expertise, and innovative tools to support the management and sustained use of natural resources on public and Tribal lands in the Southwest U.S.

In recent decades, wildfires have increased in size and intensity, and the fire season has lengthened. This and other factors have increased wildfire suppression costs and risks to human health and safety. Economists in the Social and Economic Analysis Branch (SEA) at FORT investigate numerous aspects of wildland fire, its impacts, and how to mitigate the risk wildfire poses to people, resources...

WebDART is an online ecological assessment tool available to a wide audience that incorporates Landsat satellite remote sensing imagery, topography, geology, soil conditions, and rangeland geospatial and vegetation mapping to compare altered terrain with an unspoiled area that has similar characteristics in the same region. The tool gives resource managers, landowners, companies, and other...

Federal investments in land management projects protect Federal trusts, ensure public health and safety, and preserve and enhance the benefits provided by ecosystems to people. These investments also generate business activity and create jobs. However, limited information often exists on the costs and associated economic impacts of public land management activities.

Bureaus within the Department of the Interior are working together to build a framework to assess restoration outcomes. USGS is leading this effort that will inform landscape-level resource management and increase benefits from restoration investments.

The Restoration Assessment and Monitoring Program for the Southwest (RAMPS) seeks to assist U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) and other land management agencies in developing successful techniques for improving land condition in dryland ecosystems of the southwestern United States. Invasion by non-native species, wildfire, drought, and other disturbances are growing rapidly in extent and...

USGS is investigating the impact of the annual grass-fire cycle-- and restoration land treatments aimed at slowing that cycle-- on carbon storage in dryland soils.

Coastal ecosystems provide critical local and national societal benefits such as coastal protection and fish nurseries but are some of the most heavily used and threatened systems on the planet. The Mangrove Science Network is a collaboration of USGS scientists focused on working with natural resource managers to develop and conduct mangrove research.

The Mangrove Science Network is a collaboration of USGS scientists focused on working with natural resource managers to develop and conduct research whose findings will support and evaluate decisions made in mangrove management and restoration.

Forests are a key component of a healthy ecosystem. Management of these resources is vital to their protection as a recreational resource as well as an environmental resource.

USGS economists and social scientists conduct economic and social science research in the context of natural resource management to deliver information used by resource managers to maximize and sustain economic and social benefits from natural resources to the American public.

America’s grasslands are in the middle of the country where there is insufficient rain to support forests but too much to be a desert.