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Justin Welty

I am an Biologist at the USGS Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center in Boise, ID. I specialize in the use of ArcGIS applications to collect monitoring data as well as databases and web tools designed to collect data on habitat and wildlife conservation.

I started my USGS career by creating and entering the initial data for the Land Treatment Digital Library, a database designed to store tabular data, spatial locations, and documentation on Bureau of Land Management legacy vegetation manipulation treatments. The project is now in its 14th year and has grown to include all legacy treatment data across the contiguous western United States. In 2021, we officially released the Land Treatment Exploration Tool to allow users with any level of GIS experience to explore the history of their planned treatment area and assist them with identifying the best treatment methods for the area. In 2014, I started learning web design and became the lead web designer and database manager for the Conservation Efforts Database (CED). While the initial CED was designed to capture land treatment efforts implemented to preserve greater sage-grouse habitat, it continues to grow and expand. We now have two functional modules, a Sagebrush/Sage-grouse module and a Gunnison sage-grouse module. We are currently building a third module to capture cutthroat trout conservation efforts, demographics, genetics, and habitat data. In addition, I am the lead programmer for and manage the USGS Combined Wildland Fire Dataset. We currently have a team of around 30 wild and prescribed fire experts from multiple agencies and states helping us combine and present fire information from over 40 unique fire datasets.

Other duties include (1) creating mobile data collection apps using ArcGIS Survey123 and Collector, (2) assisting and advising users across the USGS and other agencies and groups in the design of mobile data collection forms, (3) creating and editing manuscripts for publication in scientific literature, (4) spatial mapping design and programming in ArcGIS and Python for work on multiple projects including those involved in global warming, toolbox development, and species habitat modeling, (5) assisting other staff at the station with spatial mapping and database issues, and (6) figure design for manuscript publications using programs such as Adobe Photoshop.

Professional Experience

  • 2020 - Present: Biologist, USGS Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, Boise, ID

  • 2008 - 2020: Ecologist, USGS Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, Boise, ID

  • 2005 - 2008: Student Teaching Assistance, Boise State University, Boise, ID

Education and Certifications

  • M.S., Raptor Biology, Boise State University, Boise, ID (2008)

  • Geographic Information Systems Certificate, Boise State University, Boise, ID (2008)

  • B.A., Environmental Science (Resource Management Track), Goshen College, Goshen, IN (2002)

Honors and Awards

  • Meritorious Service Award of the U.S. Department of the Interior (2019)

  • Northwest GIS User Group Conference Best Analysis Award for the Land Treatment Exploration Tool (2018)

  • U.S. Department of the Interior Unit Award for Excellence of Service – Greater Sage-Grouse Status Review Team (2015)

Science and Products

If you are unable to access or download a product, email fresc_outreach@usgs.gov a request, including the full citation, or call (541) 750-1030.

Filter Total Items: 19

Reestablishing a foundational species: limitations on post-wildfire sagebrush seedling establishment

Improving post-wildfire restoration of foundational plant species is crucial for conserving imperiled ecosystems. We sought to better understand the initial establishment of sagebrush (Artemisia sp.), a foundational shrubland species over a vast area of western North America, in the first 1–2 years post-wildfire, a critical time period for population recovery. Field data from 460 sagebrush populat
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Ecosystems, Land Management Research Program, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center

Ten practical questions to improve data quality

High-quality rangeland data are critical to supporting adaptive management. However, concrete, cost-saving steps to ensure data quality are often poorly defined and understood.Data quality is more than data management. Ensuring data quality requires 1) clear communication among team members; 2) appropriate sample design; 3) training of data collectors, data managers, and data users; 4) observer an
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Ecosystems, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center

Protecting restoration investments from the cheatgrass-fire cycle in sagebrush steppe

The US federal government has recently committed to the difficult task of slowing and managing the invasive grass-fire cycle in sagebrush steppe, where property, livelihoods, and entire ecosystems are at risk. To safely manage this crisis, the government recently proposed to construct about 17,700 km of fuel breaks and millions of hectares of fuel reduction treatments in six western states. A chal
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Ecosystems, Land Management Research Program, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center

Evaluating establishment of conservation practices in the Conservation Reserve Program across the central and western United States

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is one of the largest private lands conservation programs in the United States, establishing perennial vegetation on environmentally sensitive lands formerly in agricultural production. Over its 35 year existence, the CRP has evolved to include diverse conservation practices (CPs) while concomitantly meeting its core goals of
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Ecosystems, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, Fort Collins Science Center

Sagebrush conservation strategy—Challenges to sagebrush conservation

The sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) biome, its wildlife, and the services and benefits it provides people and local communities are at risk. Development in the sagebrush biome, for many purposes, has resulted in multiple and often cumulative negative impacts. These impacts, ranging from simple habitat loss to complex, interactive changes in ecosystem function, continue to accelerate even as the need gr
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Ecosystems, Land Management Research Program, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, Fort Collins Science Center

Data entry module and manuals for the Land Treatment Digital Library

Across the country, public land managers make decisions each year that influence landscapes and ecosystems within their jurisdictions. Many of these decisions involve vegetation manipulations, which often are referred to as land treatments. These treatments include removal or alteration of plant biomass, seeding of burned areas, application of herbicides, and other activities. Data documenting the
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Ecosystems, Land Management Research Program, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center

Land Treatment Digital Library

The Land Treatment Digital Library (LTDL) was created by the U.S. Geological Survey to catalog legacy land treatment information on Bureau of Land Management lands in the western United States. The LTDL can be used by federal managers and scientists for compiling information for data-calls, producing maps, generating reports, and conducting analyses at varying spatial and temporal scales. The LTDL
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Ecosystems, Land Management Research Program, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center

Transient population dynamics impede restoration and may promote ecosystem transformation after disturbance

The apparent failure of ecosystems to recover from increasingly widespread disturbance is a global concern. Despite growing focus on factors inhibiting resilience and restoration, we still know very little about how demographic and population processes influence recovery. Using inverse and forward demographic modelling of 531 post‐fire sagebrush populations across the western US, we show that demo
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Ecosystems, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, Southwest Biological Science Center

Adapting management to a changing world: Warm temperatures, dry soil, and interannual variability limit restoration success of a dominant woody shrub in temperate drylands

Restoration and rehabilitation of native vegetation in dryland ecosystems, which encompass over 40% of terrestrial ecosystems, is a common challenge that continues to grow as wildfire and biological invasions transform dryland plant communities. The difficulty in part stems from low and variable precipitation, combined with limited understanding about how weather conditions influence restoration o
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Ecosystems, Southwest Biological Science Center

Fuels guide and database for intact and invaded big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) ecological sites—User manual

The Fuels Guide and Database (FGD) is intended to provide fuel loading and vegetation information for big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) ecological sites in the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area (hereinafter the NCA) in southern Idaho. Sagebrush ecosystems in the NCA and throughout much of the Great Basin are highly influenced by non-native plants that alter succ
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Ecosystems, Land Management Research Program, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center

An introduction and practical guide to use of the Soil-Vegetation Inventory Method (SVIM) data

Long-term vegetation dynamics across public rangelands in the western United States are not well understood because of the lack of large-scale, readily available historic datasets. The Bureau of Land Management’s Soil-Vegetation Inventory Method (SVIM) program was implemented between 1977 and 1983 across 14 western states, but the data have not been easily accessible. We introduce the SVIM vegetat
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Ecosystems, Land Management Research Program, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center

Land treatment exploration tool

OverviewLand managers make decisions regarding restoration and rehabilitation actions that influence landscapes and ecosystems. Many of these decisions involve soil and vegetation manipulations, often known as land treatments. Historically, treatments were planned on a case by case basis with decisions derived from personal experience of past successes or failures. Current adaptive management stra
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Ecosystems, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center
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Acronym WFTT stands for Wildland Fire Trends Tool over a background of flames

Wildland Fire Trends Tool

The Wildland Fire Trends Tool (WFTT) is a data visualization and analysis tool that calculates and displays wildfire trends and patterns for the western U.S. based on user-defined regions of interest, time periods, and ecosystem types. Users can use the tool to easily generate a variety of maps, graphs, and tabular data products that are informative for all levels of expertise. The WFTT provides...
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Ecosystems, Land Management Research Program, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center
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Wildland Fire Trends Tool

The Wildland Fire Trends Tool (WFTT) is a data visualization and analysis tool that calculates and displays wildfire trends and patterns for the western U.S. based on user-defined regions of interest, time periods, and ecosystem types. Users can use the tool to easily generate a variety of maps, graphs, and tabular data products that are informative for all levels of expertise. The WFTT provides...
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Image of fire with large smoke plume

The Wildfire Trends Tool: A data visualization and analysis tool to meet land management needs and facilitate scientific inquiry

Fighting wildfires and reducing their negative effects on natural resources costs billions of dollars annually in the U.S. We will develop the Wildfire Trends Tool (WTT), a data visualization and analysis tool that will calculate and display wildfire trends and patterns for the western U.S. based on user-defined regions of interest, time periods, and ecosystem types. The WTT will be publicly avail
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Community for Data Integration (CDI)
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The Wildfire Trends Tool: A data visualization and analysis tool to meet land management needs and facilitate scientific inquiry

Fighting wildfires and reducing their negative effects on natural resources costs billions of dollars annually in the U.S. We will develop the Wildfire Trends Tool (WTT), a data visualization and analysis tool that will calculate and display wildfire trends and patterns for the western U.S. based on user-defined regions of interest, time periods, and ecosystem types. The WTT will be publicly avail
Learn More
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USGS science for a changing world logo

GIS Clipping and Summarization Tool for Points, Lines, Polygons, and Rasters

Geographic Information System (GIS) analyses are an essential part of natural resource management and research. Calculating and summarizing data within intersecting GIS layers is common practice for analysts and researchers. However, the various tools and steps required to complete this process are slow and tedious, requiring many tools iterating over hundreds, or even thousands of datasets. We pr
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Community for Data Integration (CDI)
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GIS Clipping and Summarization Tool for Points, Lines, Polygons, and Rasters

Geographic Information System (GIS) analyses are an essential part of natural resource management and research. Calculating and summarizing data within intersecting GIS layers is common practice for analysts and researchers. However, the various tools and steps required to complete this process are slow and tedious, requiring many tools iterating over hundreds, or even thousands of datasets. We pr
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Five mule deer stare at the camera as they stand in a field of dry sagebrush

Contributions to the development of the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies Sagebrush Conservation Strategy

USGS scientists are contributing to the development of the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies Sagebrush Conservation Strategy, a strategy intended to provide guidance so that efforts to conserve the iconic greater sage-grouse can be expanded to the entire sagebrush biome to benefit the people and wildlife that depend on it.
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Ecosystems, Land Management Research Program, Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center , Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, Fort Collins Science Center, Southwest Biological Science Center, Western Ecological Research Center (WERC)
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Contributions to the development of the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies Sagebrush Conservation Strategy

USGS scientists are contributing to the development of the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies Sagebrush Conservation Strategy, a strategy intended to provide guidance so that efforts to conserve the iconic greater sage-grouse can be expanded to the entire sagebrush biome to benefit the people and wildlife that depend on it.
Learn More
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USGS science for a changing world logo

Integrating short-term climate forecast into a restoration management support tool

Natural resources managers are regularly required to make decisions regarding upcoming restoration treatments, often based on little more than business as usual practices. To assist in the decision-making process, we created a tool that predicts site-specific soil moisture and climate for the upcoming year, and provides guidance on whether common restoration activities (i.e. seeding, planting) wil
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Community for Data Integration (CDI)
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Integrating short-term climate forecast into a restoration management support tool

Natural resources managers are regularly required to make decisions regarding upcoming restoration treatments, often based on little more than business as usual practices. To assist in the decision-making process, we created a tool that predicts site-specific soil moisture and climate for the upcoming year, and provides guidance on whether common restoration activities (i.e. seeding, planting) wil
Learn More
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Screenshot of the Land Treatment Exploration Tool with proposed treatment drawn on screen.

Land Treatment Exploration Tool

The Land Treatment Exploration Tool provides a practical resource for managers who are planning restoration and rehabilitation actions on public lands. The tool generates a variety of spatial products while being user friendly for all levels of GIS expertise, even to those with little or no experience.
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Ecosystems, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center
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Land Treatment Exploration Tool

The Land Treatment Exploration Tool provides a practical resource for managers who are planning restoration and rehabilitation actions on public lands. The tool generates a variety of spatial products while being user friendly for all levels of GIS expertise, even to those with little or no experience.
Learn More
link

Land Treatment Digital Library

The LTDL was created by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to catalog information about land treatments on Federal lands in the western United States for all interested parties. The flexible framework of the library allows for the storage of a wide variety of data in different formats. The LTDL currently stores previously established land treatments or what often are called legacy data. The project...
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Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center
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Land Treatment Digital Library

The LTDL was created by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to catalog information about land treatments on Federal lands in the western United States for all interested parties. The flexible framework of the library allows for the storage of a wide variety of data in different formats. The LTDL currently stores previously established land treatments or what often are called legacy data. The project...
Learn More

If you are unable to access or download a product, email fresc_outreach@usgs.gov a request, including the full citation, or call (541) 750-1030.

Reestablishing a foundational species: limitations on post-wildfire sagebrush seedling establishment

This dataset contains observations used to better understand the initial establishment of sagebrush (Artemisia sp.), in the first 1-2 years post-wildfire. Field data come from 460 sagebrush populations sampled across the Great Basin and many GIS-derived co-variates are included as well.
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Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center

Combined wildland fire datasets for the United States and certain territories, 1800s-Present

First, we would like to thank the wildland fire advisory group. Their wisdom and guidance helped us build the dataset as it currently exists. This dataset is comprised of two different zip files. Zip File 1: The data within this zip file are composed of two wildland fire datasets. (1) A merged dataset consisting of 40 different wildfire and prescribed fire layers. The original 40 layers were all f
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Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center

USGS Land Treatment Digital Library Data Release: A centralized archive for land treatment tabular and spatial data (ver. 5.0, July 2022)

Across the country, public land managers make hundreds of decisions each year that influence landscapes and ecosystems within the lands they manage. Many of these decisions involve vegetation manipulations known as land treatments. Land treatments include activities such as removal or alteration of plant biomass, seeding burned areas, and herbicide applications. Data on these land treatments histo
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Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center

Presence of erosional features and cover of grasses, forbs, and bare ground on fields enrolled in grassland, wetland, and wildlife practices of the Conservation Reserve Program in the central and western United States from 2016 to 2018

Data included in this data set are from in-field and edge-of-field surveys that recorded the presence of erosional features and cover of vegetation and bare ground on 1786 Conservation Reserve Program fields across three types of conservation practices (grassland, wetland, and wildlife). Field sampling data were recorded across six US Department of Agriculture Farm Production Regions (Corn belt, L
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Fort Collins Science Center

NRCS FY2018 Soil Properties and Interpretations, Derived Using gSSURGO Data and Tools

These data depict the western United States Map Unit areas as defined by the USDA NRCS. Each Map Unit area contains information on a variety of soil properties and interpretations. The raster is to be joined to the .csv file by the field "mukey." We keep the raster and csv separate to preserve the full attribute names in the csv that would be truncated if attached to the raster. Once joined, the r
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Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center

Combined wildfire datasets for the United States and certain territories, 1878-2019

This dataset is comprised of four different zip files. Zip File 1: A combined wildfire polygon dataset ranging in years from 1878-2019 (142 years) that was created by merging and dissolving fire information from 12 different original wildfire datasets to create one of the most comprehensive wildfire datasets available. Attributes describing fires that were reported in the various source data, incl
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Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center

Sagebrush Conservation Efforts Database Batch Upload Template User Manual Version 2.0.0

The sagebrush ecosystem is the largest ecosystem type in the continental U.S., providing habitat for more than 350 associated fish and wildlife species. In recognition of the need to conserve a healthy sagebrush ecosystem to provide for the long-term conservation of its inhabitants, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) and United States Geological Survey (USGS) developed the Conservation Eff
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Land Management Research Program, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center

Fuels Database for Intact and Invaded Big Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) Ecological Sites

The Fuels Guide and Database for Big Sagebrush Ecological Sites was developed as part of the Joint Fire Sciences Program project "Quantifying and predicting fuels and the effects of reduction treatments along successional and invasion gradients in sagebrush habitats" (Shinneman and others, 2015). The research was carried out by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Forest and Rangeland Ecosy
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Land Management Research Program, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center

Vegetation cover data used from the Soil Vegetation Inventory Method (SVIM) for Southwest Idaho

The US Department of Interior's (USDI) Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has a long history of soil and vegetation monitoring of public rangelands it manages. However, historical monitoring data have been stored and managed at the field, district, or state level, making them difficult to compile and analyze. BLM's Soil Vegetation Inventory Method (hereafter SVIM) program occurred between 1977 and 19
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Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center

Western United States 30m Raw Heatload Values

Heat load, a unitless value from approximately 0 (low incident radiation) to around 1 (high incident radiation), is calculated using aspect, slope, and latitude (McCune and Dylan 2002 ). This raster was generated as a precursor layer to generate a layer used with the Land Treatment Planning Tool. The planning tool uses the binned version of this data, while this raster includes the raw, calculated
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Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center

Western US Ruggedness Reclassified into 6 Classes

"Vector Ruggedness Measure (VRM) measures terrain ruggedness as the variation in three-dimensional orientation of grid cells within a neighborhood. Vector analysis is used to calculate the dispersion of vectors normal (orthogonal) to grid cells within the specified neighborhood. This method effectively captures variability in slope and aspect into a single measure. Ruggedness values in the output
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Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center

Combined wildfire dataset for the United States and certain territories, 1870-2015

The increase in wildfires, particularly in the western U.S., represents one of the greatest threats to multiple native ecosystems. Despite this threat, there is currently no central repository to store both past and current wildfire perimeter data. Currently, wildfire boundaries can only be found in disparate local or national datasets. These datasets are generally restricted to specific locations
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Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center

If you are unable to access or download a product, email fresc_outreach@usgs.gov a request, including the full citation, or call (541) 750-1030.

Conservation Efforts Database

The Conservation Efforts Database is a partnership between the USGS and USFWS to collect and analyze ongoing conservation efforts for the Greater Sage-Grouse. Understanding the distribution and type of conservation actions happening across the landscape will allow visualization and quantification of the extent to which threats are being addressed.

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Ecosystems, Land Management Research Program, Land Management Research Program, Sage-grouse & Sagebrush Ecosystem

If you are unable to access or download a product, email fresc_outreach@usgs.gov a request, including the full citation, or call (541) 750-1030.

GIS Clipping and Summarization Toolbox

This tool is being provided free to the public in support of GIS specialists who calculate summary information.
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Community for Data Integration (CDI), Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center

Creating Custom Bar Codes for Tracking Samples from the Field to the Laboratory

This tool is being provided free to the public in support of field and laboratory specialists who would like to create custom bar codes in order to better maintain their field and laboratory samples.
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Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center
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Land Treatment Exploration Tool Website Improvements and New Features

The Land Treatment Exploration Tool website was recently updated to include many improvements and new features.

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Data Release: Combined Wildfire Datasets for the United States and Certain Territories, 1878-2019

USGS researchers created a comprehensive wildfire dataset for the United States that spans 142 years, from 1878-2019.

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Burned Area Emergency Stabilization and Rehabilitation Facilitated by Land Treatment Exploration Tool

The Bureau of Land Management is partnering with U.S. Geological to provide improved decision support to Burned Area Emergency Stabilization and...

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Why Sagebrush Re-establishment After Fire is so Difficult

Big sagebrush ecosystems are particularly sensitive to wildfires and life history information on big sagebrush is scarce and vital for restoration...

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FRESC Ecologist Awarded Meritorious Service Award

Justin Welty, the project coordinator for the Land Treatment Exploration Tool, received the Meritorious Service Award of the Department of the...

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USGS Land Treatment Tools Win Best Analysis Award

The Land Treatment Digital Library (LTDL) and Land Treatment Exploration Tool won the Best Analysis award at the NW GIS User Group Conference in Boise...

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A Database Tool for Estimating Fuel Loadings Across a Range of Intact to Degraded Sagebrush Habitats in Southern Idaho

USGS researchers created an interactive Fuels Guide and Database, providing vegetation and fuel loading information and photographs for big sagebrush...

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Land Treatment Exploration Tool Fact Sheet

Land restoration and rehabilitation efforts usually involve soil and vegetation manipulations, which influence landscapes and ecosystems. These...

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Environmental Factors Affect Success of Sagebrush Reseeding Efforts

In the western U.S., big sagebrush ecosystems provide habitat for about 350 species of conservation concern, but are sensitive to disturbance and are...

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man holding microphone
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Sagebrush, grasses, and forbs in a shrub-steppe ecosystem
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Science and Products