Identifying Historical Drivers of Vegetation Change to Inform Future Management of Federal Lands in the Northern Great Basin

The sagebrush rangelands of the Great Basin provide crucial habitat for a diversity of wildlife, including the pronghorn and the greater sage-grouse. These water-limited, highly-managed ecosystems have already been degraded by wildfires, the expansion of invasive grasses, and livestock grazing, and are expected to experience additional stress as climate and land use conditions change. Effective management of sagebrush ecosystems in the future will require the ability to understand and predict these future changes. To address this need, researchers will identify historical rates and causes of vegetation change in shrubland ecosystems, then use this information to develop potential future climate and land use scenarios...

Categories: Project; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: 2018, CASC, Completed, Landsat, Landscapes, All tags... Landscapes, Landscapes, Northwest, Northwest, Northwest CASC, Other Landscapes, Other Landscapes, Projects by Region, Projects by Region, Shrubland, climate change, disturbance, fire, grazing, projected change, recovery, sagebrush, Fewer tags

Temporal and Spatio-Temporal High-Resolution Satellite Data for the Validation of a Landsat Time-Series of Fractional Component Cover Across Western United States (U.S.) Rangelands

Western U.S. rangelands have been quantified as six fractional cover (0-100%) components over the Landsat archive (1985-2018) at 30-m resolution, termed the “Back-in-Time” (BIT) dataset. Robust validation through space and time is needed to quantify product accuracy. We leverage field data observed concurrently with HRS imagery over multiple years and locations in the Western U.S. to dramatically expand the spatial extent and sample size of validation analysis relative to a direct comparison to field observations and to previous work. We compare HRS and BIT data in the corresponding space and time. Our objectives were to evaluate the temporal and spatio-temporal relationships between HRS and BIT data, and to compare...

Categories: Data; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: Central Basin and Range, Land Use Change, MT, Montana, NV, All tags... Nevada, Northern Basin and Range, Northwestern Great Plains, Southern Rockies, USGS Science Data Catalog (SDC), United States, WY, Wyoming, Wyoming Basin, annual herbaceous, back-in-time, bare ground, big sagebrush, biota, environment, fractional components, geoscientificInformation, grass, herbaceous, imageryBaseMapsEarthCover, litter, rangelands, remote sensing, sagebrush, shrub, shrubland, shrubland ecosystems, shrublands, terrestrial ecosystems, time-series, validation, vegetation, Fewer tags

National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2016 Shrubland Fractional Components for the Western U.S. (ver. 2.0, October 2019)

This data release has been superseded by version 3.0, available here: https://doi.org/10.5066/P9MJVQSQ Quantifying Western U.S. shrublands as a series of fractional components with remote sensing provides a new way to understand these changing ecosystems. The USGS NLCD team in collaboration with the BLM has produced the most comprehensive remote sensing-based quantification of Western U.S. shrublands to date. Nine shrubland ecosystem components, including percent shrub, sagebrush (Artemisia spp.), big sagebrush, herbaceous, annual herbaceous, litter, and bare ground cover, along with sagebrush and shrub heights, were quantified at 30-m resolution by mapping region. Each region required extensive ground measurement...

Categories: Data Release - Revised; Tags: AZ, Arizona, Arizona Plateau, Black Hills, Blue Mountains, All tags... CA, CO, California, Chihuahuan Desert, Colorado, Colorado Plateau, Columbia Plateau, Grand Canyon, Great Basin, Gunnison, ID, Idaho, Land Use Change, MT, Middle Rockies, Montana, ND, NE, NM, NV, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Northern Mountainous, OR, Oregon, Rocky Mountains, SD, Sonoran Desert, South Dakota, Southwest Tablelands, TX, Texas, Three Forks, USGS Science Data Catalog (SDC), UT, United States, Utah, WA, WY, Wasatch, Washington, Western US, Wyoming, Yellowstone, annual herbaceous, bare ground, big sagebrush, biota, environment, geoscientificInformation, grass, herbaceous, imageryBaseMapsEarthCover, litter, rangeland, sagebrush, shrub, shrubland, shrubland ecosystems, shrublands, terrestrial ecosystems, vegetation, Fewer tags

Annual Herbaceous Cover across Rangelands of the Sagebrush Biome

Data are cross-listed on https://rangelands.app/cheatgrass/ Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) and other invasive annual grasses represent one of the single largest threats to the health and resilience of western rangelands. To address this challenge, the Western Governors Association (WGA)-appointed Western Invasive Species Council convened a cheatgrass working group to develop a new regional vision for invasive annual grass management across the West. Foundational to implementing this new vision is the creation of a common spatial map to guide strategic actions. The WGA cheatgrass working group sought to develop a 30-m base map of annual herbaceous cover to support a common spatial strategy for tackling invasive annual...

Tags: Arizona, California, Colorado, Great Basin, Great Basin, All tags... Idaho, Land Use Change, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, SageDAT-data, South Dakota, USGS Science Data Catalog (SDC), United States, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, biota, cheatgrass, geoscientificInformation, grassland ecosystems, grasslands, invasive species, remote sensing, terrestrial ecosystems, vegetation, Fewer tags

Forecasting sagebrush ecosystem components and greater sage grouse habitat

Forecasting sagebrush ecosystem components and greater sage grouse habitat

Categories: Data; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: EARTH SCIENCE > LAND SURFACE > LANDSCAPE, Federal resource managers, LCC Network Science Catalog, Policy makers & regulators, State agencies, All tags... completed, environment, presentation, Fewer tags

Assessing the Vulnerability of Dryland Ecosystems to Drought in the Western U.S.

In the western U.S., rising temperatures and pronounced drought conditions pose significant challenges to public land managers. Widespread declines of multiple plant species have already been observed, providing insight into what the future could look like for vegetation in the region as conditions are projected to become warmer and drier. To understand how vulnerable western ecosystems are to drought, managers need to know which climatic and soil conditions cause habitats to change, and at what rate these changes may occur – important topics on which there is little available data. This project seeks to identify the vulnerability of habitats in the western U.S. to drought. Researchers will compare changes in...

Categories: Project; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: 2015, CASC, Drought, Drought, Drought, Fire and Extreme Weather, All tags... Drought, Fire and Extreme Weather, Landsat satellite imagery, National CASC, National CASC, Plants, Plants, Projects by Region, Wildlife and Plants, Wildlife and Plants, climate and land-use change scenarios, vegetation monitoring and state-and-transitions, Fewer tags