Project Number: 6235-11210-005-25
Project Type: Reimbursable

Start Date: Oct 01, 2003
End Date: Sep 30, 2006

Objective:
Continued collaboration between USDA/ARS and EPA in providing field data and applying up-to-date methodology and analyses. The research encompasses spatial scale from patch to landscape and time scales ranging from seasons (to assess inter-annual variation) to decades and centuries. Studies examining indicators at the patch scale have been conducted on a long-term experiment designed to examine interacting and multiple environmental stressors on ecosystem properties and processes. The primary objective of the current proposed work is to develop indicators of rangeland conditions that can be used in assessment and monitoring in the western US.

Approach:
1. Collection of data from existing experiment. USDA/ARS currently has access to a randomized, block design experiment that has been in place since 1994. Vegetation, soil and animal population measurements were made from 1994 to 1999 to characterize exposure variables and evaluate system responses to these variables for assessment of useful indicators. Measurements completed by 1999 included cover and composition of the vegetation, fetch lengths of unvegetated patches, fine scale topographic variability in soil surface on grazed and ungrazed plots, soil aggregate stability and compaction, arthropod and mammal communities, and soil microarthropod communities. 2. GIS Model. Develop and design GIS Model using ESRI ARCView that will allow for data entry, analysis and mapping of the areas identified in the project. 3. Impacts of roads in desert rangelands. Study the impacts of roads in desert rangelands using a GIS modeling approach combined with ecological studies of hydrology and vegetation composition and production at critical points on roads identified by the GIS model.

Project Team

Havstad, Kris

Related National Programs

Rangeland, Pasture, and Forages (205)