Mojave Basin and Range Ecoregion: Chapter 29 in Status and trends of land change in the Western United States--1973 to 2000

This chapter has been modified from original material published in Sleeter and Raumann (2006), entitled “Land-cover trends in the Mojave Basin and Range Ecoregion” (U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2006–5098). The Mojave Basin and Range Ecoregion (Omernik, 1987; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1997) covers approximately 130,922 km² (50,549 mi²) in the southwestern United States. The ecoregion, which encompasses parts of four states, includes the Mojave Desert and much of the other desert areas in southeastern California, as well as a large part of the southern Nevada desert (fig. 1). The ecoregion is bounded on the north by the Central Basin and Range Ecoregion, on the east by the Colorado Plateaus and the Arizona/New Mexico Plateau Ecoregions, on the south by the Sonoran Basin and Range Ecoregion, and on the west by the Southern California Mountains and the Sierra Nevada Ecoregions.