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.
Combined wildfire dataset for the United States and certain territories, 1870-2015
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.
The Conservation Efforts Database: Improving our knowledge of landscape conservation actions
Refining the cheatgrass–fire cycle in the Great Basin: Precipitation timing and fine fuel composition predict wildfire trends
Long-term trends in restoration and associated land treatments in the southwestern United States
Seventy-five years of vegetation treatments on public rangelands in the Great Basin of North America
Quantifying restoration effectiveness using multi-scale habitat models: implications for sage-grouse in the Great Basin
Terrestrial movement patterns of western pond turtles (Actinemys marmorata) in central California
Data entry module and manuals for the Land Treatment Digital Library
Land Treatment Digital Library
Pattern and process of prescribed fires influence effectiveness at reducing wildfire severity in dry coniferous forests
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.
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.
Science and Products
- Science
- Data
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: 13Combined 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 - Multimedia
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- Publications
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: 21The Conservation Efforts Database: Improving our knowledge of landscape conservation actions
The Conservation Efforts Database (CED) is a secure, cloud-based tool that can be used to document and track conservation actions across landscapes. A recently released factsheet describes this tool ahead of the rollout of CED version 2.0. The CED was developed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the USGS, and the Great Northern Landscape Conservation Cooperative to support the 2015 EndangeredAuthorsMatthew M. Heller, Justin L. Welty, Lief A. WiechmanRefining the cheatgrass–fire cycle in the Great Basin: Precipitation timing and fine fuel composition predict wildfire trends
Larger, more frequent wildfires in arid and semi-arid ecosystems have been associated with invasion by non-native annual grasses, yet a complete understanding of fine fuel development and subsequent wildfire trends is lacking. We investigated the complex relationships among weather, fine fuels, and fire in the Great Basin, USA. We first modeled the annual and time-lagged effects of precipitation aAuthorsDavid S. Pilliod, Justin L. Welty, Robert ArkleLong-term trends in restoration and associated land treatments in the southwestern United States
Restoration treatments, such as revegetation with seeding or invasive species removal, have been applied on U.S. public lands for decades. Temporal trends in these management actions have not been extensively summarized previously, particularly in the southwestern United States where invasive plant species, drought, and fire have altered dryland ecosystems. We assessed long-term (1940–2010) trendsAuthorsStella M. Copeland, Seth M. Munson, David S. Pilliod, Justin L. Welty, John B. Bradford, Bradley J. ButterfieldSeventy-five years of vegetation treatments on public rangelands in the Great Basin of North America
On the Ground Land treatments occurring over millions of hectares of public rangelands in the Great Basin over the last 75 years represent one of the largest vegetation manipulation and restoration efforts in the world.The ability to use legacy data from land treatments in adaptive management and ecological research has improved with the creation of the Land Treatment Digital Library (LTDL), a spaAuthorsDavid S. Pilliod, Justin L. Welty, Gordon ToevsQuantifying restoration effectiveness using multi-scale habitat models: implications for sage-grouse in the Great Basin
A recurrent challenge in the conservation of wide-ranging, imperiled species is understanding which habitats to protect and whether we are capable of restoring degraded landscapes. For Greater Sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), a species of conservation concern in the western United States, we approached this problem by developing multi-scale empirical models of occupancy in 211 randomly locAuthorsRobert S. Arkle, David S. Pilliod, Steven E. Hanser, Matthew L. Brooks, Jeanne C. Chambers, James B. Grace, Kevin C. Knutson, David A. Pyke, Justin L. WeltyTerrestrial movement patterns of western pond turtles (Actinemys marmorata) in central California
We used radio telemetry to track the terrestrial movements and seasonal habitat use patterns of Western Pond Turtles (Actinemys marmorata) near two ponds in the Carrizo Plain Ecological Reserve, California, USA. We captured 93 turtles in September 2005 and, of these, we tagged three males and six females(weighing > 300 g) with external transmitters. Tagged turtles traveled from 255–1,096 m over thAuthorsDavid S. Pilliod, Justin L. Welty, Robert StaffordData 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 theAuthorsJustin L. Welty, David S. PilliodLand 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 LTDLAuthorsDavid S. Pilliod, Justin L. WeltyPattern and process of prescribed fires influence effectiveness at reducing wildfire severity in dry coniferous forests
We examined the effects of three early season (spring) prescribed fires on burn severity patterns of summer wildfires that occurred 1–3 years post-treatment in a mixed conifer forest in central Idaho. Wildfire and prescribed fire burn severities were estimated as the difference in normalized burn ratio (dNBR) using Landsat imagery. We used GIS derived vegetation, topography, and treatment variableAuthorsRobert S. Arkle, David S. Pilliod, Justin L. Welty - Web Tools
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.
- Software
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.
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