RestoreNet subplot data for 21 sites within major dryland ecoregions throughout the southwestern United States, 2018 - 2021

These data were compiled for a networked field-trial restoration experiment (RestoreNet) that spans the southwestern US, including 21 distributed field sites. The objective of our study was to understand the environmental factors and restoration practices (including seed mixes and soil manipulation) that increase plant establishment and survival to ultimate improve restoration outcomes in dryland environments. These data represent point-in-time plant density and height measurements at our field sites at the time of monitoring. These data were collected at 21 arid and semi-arid sites, located throughout Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and California. These data were collected by USGS Restoration Assessment and Monitoring...

Categories: Data; Tags: Arizona, Botany, California, Chihuahuan Desert, Climatology, All tags... Colorado, Colorado Plateau, Ecology, Geography, Information Sciences, Mojave Desert, New Mexico, Soil Sciences, Sonoran Desert, USGS Science Data Catalog (SDC), Utah, arid, atmospheric and climatic processes, biogeography, biota, climate change, climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere, data release, drylands, ecological modeling, ecological processes, ecological restoration, ecosystem monitoring, environment, environmental conditions, environmental variables, field inventory and monitoring, field sites, geoscientificInformation, grassland ecosystems, growth responses, monitoring, plant density, plant establishment, plant growth, plant height, plant responses, plant survival, plants (organisms), post-restoration, precipitation (atmospheric), remediation, restoration experiment, restoration seeding, restoration treatments, restoration variables, seed mixes, seedling emergence, seedling survival, semi-arid, site characteristics, soil resources, soil texture, southwestern US, spatial environmental variation, temporal change, temporal environmental variation, weedy species, zero-inflated data, Fewer tags

Projections of Rangeland Fractional Component Cover Across Western Northern American Rangelands for Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 Scenarios for the 2020s, 2050s, and 2080s Time-Periods

Climate change over the past century has altered vegetation community composition and species distributions across rangelands in the western United States. The scale and magnitude of climatic influences are largely unknown. We used fractional component cover data for rangeland functional groups and weather data from the 1985 to 2023 reference period in conjunction with soils and topography data to develop empirical models describing the spatio-temporal variation in component cover. To investigate the ramifications of future change across the western US, we extended models based on historical relationships over the reference period to model landscape effects based on future weather conditions from two emissions scenarios...

Tags: AB, AZ, Alberta, Arizona, Arizona Plateau, All tags... Black Hills, Blue Mountains, CA, CO, California, Canada, 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, OR, Oregon, Prairie Provinces, Rocky Mountains, SD, SK, Saskatchewan, Snake River Plain, Sonoran Desert, South Dakota, Southwest Tablelands, Three Forks, USGS Science Data Catalog (SDC), UT, United States, Utah, WA, WY, Wasatch, Washington, Western US, Wyoming, Yellowstone, annual herbaceous, bare ground, biota, climate change, environment, geoscientificInformation, grass, grassland change, herbaceous, imageryBaseMapsEarthCover, litter, rangeland, rangeland management, sagebrush, shrub, shrubland, shrubland change, shrubland ecosystems, shrublands, terrestrial ecosystems, trends, vegetation, vegetation change, Fewer tags

Landscape Connectivity of Isolated Waters for Wildlife in the Sonoran Desert

Texas Tech University will conduct quantitative and predictive analysis of the connectivity of isolated desert “wetlands”, that include tinajas, the name for eroded pools in bedrock, for 20 wildlife species over the Sonoran desert ecoregion. Potential loss of wetlands due to climate change will also be studied to identify high value areas that can be prioritized for future restoration efforts and targeted for better management practices.Target species for landscape connectivity analysis include:Colorado River toad ( Incilius alverius )American bullfrog ( Lithobates catesbeianus )Chiricahua leopard frog ( Lithobates chiricahuensis )Lowland leopard frog ( Lithobates yavapaiensis )Couch’s spadefoot ( Scaphiopus couchii...

Categories: Data, Project; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: 2013, AZ-01, AZ-02, AZ-03, AZ-04, All tags... Academics & scientific researchers, Applications and Tools, Arizona, CA-36, CA-50, CA-51, California, Conservation Design, Conservation NGOs, Conservation Plan/Design/Framework, Datasets/Database, Decision Support, Desert Landscape Conservation Cooperative, EARTH SCIENCE > BIOSPHERE > ECOSYSTEMS > TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS > WETLANDS, Federal resource managers, LCC, LCC Network Science Catalog, Project, Sonoran Desert, Transboundary Madrean Watersheds Pilot Area, United States, Vulnerability Assessment, biota, completed, connectivity, southwestern United States, water, wetlands, wildlife, Fewer tags

Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection (RCMAP) Shrub Fractional Component Time-Series Across Western North America from 1985-2023

The RCMAP (Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection) dataset quantifies the percent cover of rangeland components across western North America using Landsat imagery from 1985-2023. The RCMAP product suite consists of ten fractional components: annual herbaceous, bare ground, herbaceous, litter, non-sagebrush shrub, perennial herbaceous, sagebrush, shrub, tree, and shrub height in addition to the temporal trends of each component. Several enhancements were made to the RCMAP process relative to prior generations. First, high-resolution training was revised using an improved neural-net classifier and modelling approach. These data serve as foundation to the RCMAP approach. The training database was...

Tags: AB, AZ, Alberta, Arizona, Arizona Plateau, All tags... Black Hills, Blue Mountains, CA, CO, California, Canada, Chihuahuan, Chihuahuan Desert, Colorado, Colorado Plateau, Columbia Plateau, Desert, Grand Canyon, Great Basin, Gunnison, ID, Idaho, MT, Mediterranean California, Middle Rockies, Mojave, Montana, ND, NE, NM, NV, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, North Plains, Northern Great Plains, Northern Great Salt Lake Desert, Northern Mountainous, Northern Rocky Mountains, OR, Oregon, Plains, Plateau, Prairie Provinces, Rocky Mountains, SD, SK, Saskatchewan, Sierra Nevada, Sonoran, Sonoran Desert, South Dakota, Southern Great Salt Lake Desert, Southern Rocky Mountains, Southwest Tablelands, TX, Texas, The Rockies, Three Forks, UT, United States, Utah, WA, WY, Wasatch, Washington, Western US, Wyoming, Wyoming Basin, Yellowstone, annual herbaceous, back-in-time, bare ground, big sagebrush, biota, climate change, environment, geoscientificInformation, grass, grassland change, herbaceous, imageryBaseMapsEarthCover, litter, mts, rangeland, rangeland management, sagebrush, shrub, shrub height, shrubland, shrubland change, shrubland ecosystems, shrublands, terrestrial ecosystems, time series, trends, vegetation, vegetation change, vegetation height, Fewer tags

Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection (RCMAP) Non Sagebrush Shrub Fractional Component Time-Series Across Western North America from 1985-2023

The RCMAP (Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection) dataset quantifies the percent cover of rangeland components across western North America using Landsat imagery from 1985-2023. The RCMAP product suite consists of ten fractional components: annual herbaceous, bare ground, herbaceous, litter, non-sagebrush shrub, perennial herbaceous, sagebrush, shrub, tree, and shrub height in addition to the temporal trends of each component. Several enhancements were made to the RCMAP process relative to prior generations. First, high-resolution training was revised using an improved neural-net classifier and modelling approach. These data serve as foundation to the RCMAP approach. The training database was...

Tags: AB, AZ, Alberta, Arizona, Arizona Plateau, All tags... Black Hills, Blue Mountains, CA, CO, California, Canada, Chihuahuan, Chihuahuan Desert, Colorado, Colorado Plateau, Columbia Plateau, Desert, Grand Canyon, Great Basin, Gunnison, ID, Idaho, MT, Mediterranean California, Middle Rockies, Mojave, Montana, ND, NE, NM, NV, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, North Plains, Northern Great Plains, Northern Great Salt Lake Desert, Northern Mountainous, Northern Rocky Mountains, OR, Oregon, Plains, Plateau, Prairie Provinces, Rocky Mountains, SD, SK, Saskatchewan, Sierra Nevada, Sonoran, Sonoran Desert, South Dakota, Southern Great Salt Lake Desert, Southern Rocky Mountains, Southwest Tablelands, TX, Texas, The Rockies, Three Forks, UT, United States, Utah, WA, WY, Wasatch, Washington, Western US, Wyoming, Wyoming Basin, Yellowstone, annual herbaceous, back-in-time, bare ground, big sagebrush, biota, climate change, environment, geoscientificInformation, grass, grassland change, herbaceous, imageryBaseMapsEarthCover, litter, mts, rangeland, rangeland management, sagebrush, shrub, shrub height, shrubland, shrubland change, shrubland ecosystems, shrublands, terrestrial ecosystems, time series, trends, vegetation, vegetation change, vegetation height, Fewer tags

Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection (RCMAP) Fractional Component Time-Series Across the Western U.S. 1985-2021

The RCMAP (Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection) dataset quantifies the percent cover of rangeland components across the western U.S. using Landsat imagery from 1985-2021. The RCMAP product suite consists of nine fractional components: annual herbaceous, bare ground, herbaceous, litter, non-sagebrush shrub, perennial herbaceous, sagebrush, shrub, and tree, in addition to the temporal trends of each component. Several enhancements were made to the RCMAP process relative to prior generations. First, we have trained time-series predictions directly from 331 high-resolution sites collected from 2013-2018 from Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring (AIM) instead of using the 2016 “base” map as an intermediary....

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

Random forest classification data developed from multitemporal Landsat 8 spectral data and phenology metrics for a subregion in Sonoran and Mojave Deserts, April 2013 – December 2020

These data were compiled for the creation of a continuous, transboundary land cover map of Bird Conservation Region 33, Sonoran and Mojave Deserts (BCR 33). Objective(s) of our study were to, 1) develop a machine learning (ML) algorithm trained to classify vegetation land cover using remote sensing spectral data and phenology metrics from 2013-2020, over a large subregion of the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts BCR, 2) Calibrate, validate, and refine the final ML-derived vegetation map using a collection of openly sourced remote sensing and ground-based ancillary data, images, and limited fieldwork, and 3) Harmonize a new transboundary classification system by expanding existing land cover mapping resources from the United...

Categories: Data; Types: Downloadable, GeoTIFF, Map Service, Raster; Tags: Arizona, Baja California, Botany, California, Ecology, All tags... Forestry, Geography, Hermosillo, Information Sciences, Landsat images, Mexico, Mojave Desert, Phoenix, Remote Sensing, Sonora, Sonoran Desert, Southwest, US-Mexico Transboundary region, USGS Science Data Catalog (SDC), United States, artificial intelligence, biogeography, biota, classification, conservation, data release, desert ecosystems, ecosystem management, imageryBaseMapsEarthCover, land use and land cover, machine learning, modeling, natural resource management, phenology, phenology metrics, random forest model, remote sensing, remote sensing spectral data, time series datasets, transboundary, vegetation, Fewer tags

Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection (RCMAP) Perennial Herbaceous Fractional Component Time-Series Across Western North America from 1985-2023

The RCMAP (Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection) dataset quantifies the percent cover of rangeland components across western North America using Landsat imagery from 1985-2023. The RCMAP product suite consists of ten fractional components: annual herbaceous, bare ground, herbaceous, litter, non-sagebrush shrub, perennial herbaceous, sagebrush, shrub, tree, and shrub height in addition to the temporal trends of each component. Several enhancements were made to the RCMAP process relative to prior generations. First, high-resolution training was revised using an improved neural-net classifier and modelling approach. These data serve as foundation to the RCMAP approach. The training database was...

Tags: AB, AZ, Alberta, Arizona, Arizona Plateau, All tags... Black Hills, Blue Mountains, CA, CO, California, Canada, Chihuahuan, Chihuahuan Desert, Colorado, Colorado Plateau, Columbia Plateau, Desert, Grand Canyon, Great Basin, Gunnison, ID, Idaho, MT, Mediterranean California, Middle Rockies, Mojave, Montana, ND, NE, NM, NV, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, North Plains, Northern Great Plains, Northern Great Salt Lake Desert, Northern Mountainous, Northern Rocky Mountains, OR, Oregon, Plains, Plateau, Prairie Provinces, Rocky Mountains, SD, SK, Saskatchewan, Sierra Nevada, Sonoran, Sonoran Desert, South Dakota, Southern Great Salt Lake Desert, Southern Rocky Mountains, Southwest Tablelands, TX, Texas, The Rockies, Three Forks, UT, United States, Utah, WA, WY, Wasatch, Washington, Western US, Wyoming, Wyoming Basin, Yellowstone, annual herbaceous, back-in-time, bare ground, big sagebrush, biota, climate change, environment, geoscientificInformation, grass, grassland change, herbaceous, imageryBaseMapsEarthCover, litter, mts, rangeland, rangeland management, sagebrush, shrub, shrub height, shrubland, shrubland change, shrubland ecosystems, shrublands, terrestrial ecosystems, time series, trends, vegetation, vegetation change, vegetation height, Fewer tags

Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection (RCMAP) Annual Herbaceous Fractional Component Time-Series Across Western North America from 1985-2023

The RCMAP (Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection) dataset quantifies the percent cover of rangeland components across western North America using Landsat imagery from 1985-2023. The RCMAP product suite consists of ten fractional components: annual herbaceous, bare ground, herbaceous, litter, non-sagebrush shrub, perennial herbaceous, sagebrush, shrub, tree, and shrub height in addition to the temporal trends of each component. Several enhancements were made to the RCMAP process relative to prior generations. First, high-resolution training was revised using an improved neural-net classifier and modelling approach. These data serve as foundation to the RCMAP approach. The training database was...

Tags: AB, AZ, Alberta, Arizona, Arizona Plateau, All tags... Black Hills, Blue Mountains, CA, CO, California, Canada, Chihuahuan, Chihuahuan Desert, Colorado, Colorado Plateau, Columbia Plateau, Desert, Grand Canyon, Great Basin, Gunnison, ID, Idaho, MT, Mediterranean California, Middle Rockies, Mojave, Montana, ND, NE, NM, NV, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, North Plains, Northern Great Plains, Northern Great Salt Lake Desert, Northern Mountainous, Northern Rocky Mountains, OR, Oregon, Plains, Plateau, Prairie Provinces, Rocky Mountains, SD, SK, Saskatchewan, Sierra Nevada, Sonoran, Sonoran Desert, South Dakota, Southern Great Salt Lake Desert, Southern Rocky Mountains, Southwest Tablelands, TX, Texas, The Rockies, Three Forks, UT, United States, Utah, WA, WY, Wasatch, Washington, Western US, Wyoming, Wyoming Basin, Yellowstone, annual herbaceous, back-in-time, bare ground, big sagebrush, biota, climate change, environment, geoscientificInformation, grass, grassland change, herbaceous, imageryBaseMapsEarthCover, litter, mts, rangeland, rangeland management, sagebrush, shrub, shrub height, shrubland, shrubland change, shrubland ecosystems, shrublands, terrestrial ecosystems, time series, trends, vegetation, vegetation change, vegetation height, Fewer tags

Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection (RCMAP) Sagebrush Fractional Component Time-Series Across Western North America from 1985-2023

The RCMAP (Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection) dataset quantifies the percent cover of rangeland components across western North America using Landsat imagery from 1985-2023. The RCMAP product suite consists of ten fractional components: annual herbaceous, bare ground, herbaceous, litter, non-sagebrush shrub, perennial herbaceous, sagebrush, shrub, tree, and shrub height in addition to the temporal trends of each component. Several enhancements were made to the RCMAP process relative to prior generations. First, high-resolution training was revised using an improved neural-net classifier and modelling approach. These data serve as foundation to the RCMAP approach. The training database was...

Tags: AB, AZ, Alberta, Arizona, Arizona Plateau, All tags... Black Hills, Blue Mountains, CA, CO, California, Canada, Chihuahuan, Chihuahuan Desert, Colorado, Colorado Plateau, Columbia Plateau, Desert, Grand Canyon, Great Basin, Gunnison, ID, Idaho, MT, Mediterranean California, Middle Rockies, Mojave, Montana, ND, NE, NM, NV, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, North Plains, Northern Great Plains, Northern Great Salt Lake Desert, Northern Mountainous, Northern Rocky Mountains, OR, Oregon, Plains, Plateau, Prairie Provinces, Rocky Mountains, SD, SK, Saskatchewan, Sierra Nevada, Sonoran, Sonoran Desert, South Dakota, Southern Great Salt Lake Desert, Southern Rocky Mountains, Southwest Tablelands, TX, Texas, The Rockies, Three Forks, UT, United States, Utah, WA, WY, Wasatch, Washington, Western US, Wyoming, Wyoming Basin, Yellowstone, annual herbaceous, back-in-time, bare ground, big sagebrush, biota, climate change, environment, geoscientificInformation, grass, grassland change, herbaceous, imageryBaseMapsEarthCover, litter, mts, rangeland, rangeland management, sagebrush, shrub, shrub height, shrubland, shrubland change, shrubland ecosystems, shrublands, terrestrial ecosystems, time series, trends, vegetation, vegetation change, vegetation height, Fewer tags

Remote Sensing Shrub/Grass National Land Cover Database (NLCD) Back-in-Time (BIT) Products for the Western U.S., 1985 - 2018

The need to monitor change in sagebrush steppe is urgent due to the increasing impacts of climate change, shifting fire regimes, and management practices on ecosystem health. Remote sensing provides a cost-effective and reliable method for monitoring change through time and attributing changes to drivers. We report an automated method of mapping rangeland fractional component cover over a large portion of the Northern Great Basin, USA, from 1986 to 2016 using a dense Landsat imagery time series. 2012 was excluded from the time-series due to a lack of quality imagery. Our method improved upon the traditional change vector method by considering the legacy of change at each pixel. We evaluate cover trends stratified...

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, back-in-time, bare ground, big sagebrush, biota, climate change, environment, geoscientificInformation, grass, grassland change, herbaceous, imageryBaseMapsEarthCover, litter, rangeland, rangeland management, sagebrush, shrub, shrubland, shrubland change, shrubland ecosystems, shrublands, terrestrial ecosystems, time series, trends, vegetation, vegetation change, Fewer tags

Impact of Ecosystem Water Balance on Desert Vegetation: Quantification of Historical Patterns and Projection under Climate Change

Explore climate change impacts on vegetation across the Desert and Southern Rockies LCCs using historical monitoring data collected from 23 sites across the Sonoran, Chihuahuan, Mojave and Colorado Plateau deserts for 30-50 years. This data will then be combined with ecosystem water balance model simulations to establish features of water availability critical for plant species response. Results will allow managers to identify species and communities at risk under future climate scenarios based on predicted changes in plant water availability. Due to the high variability in soils, incorporating a detailed understanding of soil water availability beyond bioclimatic envelope approaches in the desert Southwest is essential...

Categories: Data, Project; Types: Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: 2012, AZ-02, AZ-03, AZ-04, Academics & scientific researchers, All tags... Applications and Tools, Arizona, Big Bend ‐ Río Bravo & Lower Río Conchos Pilot Area, CA-08, CO-03, California, Chihuahua, Chihuahuan Desert, Colorado Plateau, Conservation NGOs, Datasets/Database, Decision Support, Desert Landscape Conservation Cooperative, EARTH SCIENCE > BIOSPHERE > VEGETATION, Federal resource managers, LCC, LCC Network Science Catalog, Mexico, Mojave Desert, Mojave Desert Pilot Area, NM-02, NV-03, NV-04, New Mexico, Population & Habitat Evaluation/Projection, Project, Sonora, Sonoran Desert, TX-16, TX-23, Transboundary Madrean Watersheds Pilot Area, UT-02, UT-03, United States, User Manual, Utah, Vulnerability Assessment, biota, climate change, completed, desert southwest, ecohydrology, plants, soil water, vegetation change, water availability, Fewer tags

Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection (RCMAP) Trends Fractional Component Time-Series Across Western North America from 1985-2023

The RCMAP (Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection) dataset quantifies the percent cover of rangeland components across western North America using Landsat imagery from 1985-2023. The RCMAP product suite consists of ten fractional components: annual herbaceous, bare ground, herbaceous, litter, non-sagebrush shrub, perennial herbaceous, sagebrush, shrub, tree, and shrub height in addition to the temporal trends of each component. Several enhancements were made to the RCMAP process relative to prior generations. First, high-resolution training was revised using an improved neural-net classifier and modelling approach. These data serve as foundation to the RCMAP approach. The training database was...

Tags: AB, AZ, Alberta, Arizona, Arizona Plateau, All tags... Black Hills, Blue Mountains, CA, CO, California, Canada, Chihuahuan, Chihuahuan Desert, Colorado, Colorado Plateau, Columbia Plateau, Desert, Grand Canyon, Great Basin, Gunnison, ID, Idaho, MT, Mediterranean California, Middle Rockies, Mojave, Montana, ND, NE, NM, NV, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, North Plains, Northern Great Plains, Northern Great Salt Lake Desert, Northern Mountainous, Northern Rocky Mountains, OR, Oregon, Plains, Plateau, Prairie Provinces, Rocky Mountains, SD, SK, Saskatchewan, Sierra Nevada, Sonoran, Sonoran Desert, South Dakota, Southern Great Salt Lake Desert, Southern Rocky Mountains, Southwest Tablelands, TX, Texas, The Rockies, Three Forks, UT, United States, Utah, WA, WY, Wasatch, Washington, Western US, Wyoming, Wyoming Basin, Yellowstone, annual herbaceous, back-in-time, bare ground, big sagebrush, biota, climate change, environment, geoscientificInformation, grass, grassland change, herbaceous, imageryBaseMapsEarthCover, litter, mts, rangeland, rangeland management, sagebrush, shrub, shrub height, shrubland, shrubland change, shrubland ecosystems, shrublands, terrestrial ecosystems, time series, trends, vegetation, vegetation change, vegetation height, Fewer tags

Projections of Rangeland Fractional Component Cover Across Western US Rangelands for Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5 Scenarios for the 2020s, 2050s, and 2080s Time-Periods

Climate change over the past century has altered vegetation community composition and species distributions across rangelands in the western United States. The scale and magnitude of climatic influences are largely unknown. While a number of studies have projected the impacts of climate change using several modeling approaches, none has evaluated impacts to fractional component cover at a 30-m resolution across rangelands of the Western U.S. We used fractional component cover data for rangeland functional groups and weather data from the 1985 to 2021 reference period in conjunction with soils and topography data to develop empirical models describing the spatio-temporal variation in component cover. To investigate...

Tags: AZ, Arizona, Arizona Plateau, Black Hills, Blue Mountains, All tags... CA, CO, California, 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, OR, Oregon, Rocky Mountains, SD, Snake River Plain, Sonoran Desert, South Dakota, Southwest Tablelands, Three Forks, USGS Science Data Catalog (SDC), UT, United States, Utah, WA, WY, Wasatch, Washington, Western US, Wyoming, Yellowstone, annual herbaceous, bare ground, biota, climate change, environment, geoscientificInformation, grass, grassland change, herbaceous, imageryBaseMapsEarthCover, litter, rangeland, rangeland management, sagebrush, shrub, shrubland, shrubland change, shrubland ecosystems, shrublands, terrestrial ecosystems, trends, vegetation, vegetation change, Fewer tags

Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection (RCMAP) Fractional Component Time-Series Across Western North America from 1985-2023

The RCMAP (Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection) dataset quantifies the percent cover of rangeland components across western North America using Landsat imagery from 1985-2023. The RCMAP product suite consists of ten fractional components: annual herbaceous, bare ground, herbaceous, litter, non-sagebrush shrub, perennial herbaceous, sagebrush, shrub, tree, and shrub height in addition to the temporal trends of each component. Several enhancements were made to the RCMAP process relative to prior generations. First, high-resolution training was revised using an improved neural-net classifier and modelling approach. These data serve as foundation to the RCMAP approach. The training database was...

Tags: AB, AZ, Alberta, Arizona, Arizona Plateau, All tags... Black Hills, Blue Mountains, CA, CO, California, Canada, Chihuahuan, Chihuahuan Desert, Colorado, Colorado Plateau, Columbia Plateau, Desert, Grand Canyon, Great Basin, Gunnison, ID, Idaho, Land Use Change, MT, Mediterranean California, Middle Rockies, Mojave, Montana, ND, NE, NM, NV, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, North Plains, Northern Great Plains, Northern Great Salt Lake Desert, Northern Mountainous, Northern Rocky Mountains, OR, Oregon, Plains, Plateau, Prairie Provinces, Rocky Mountains, SD, SK, Saskatchewan, Sierra Nevada, Sonoran, Sonoran Desert, South Dakota, Southern Great Salt Lake Desert, Southern Rocky Mountains, Southwest Tablelands, TX, Texas, The Rockies, Three Forks, USGS Science Data Catalog (SDC), UT, United States, Utah, WA, WY, Wasatch, Washington, Western US, Wyoming, Wyoming Basin, Yellowstone, annual herbaceous, back-in-time, bare ground, big sagebrush, biota, climate change, environment, geoscientificInformation, grass, grassland change, herbaceous, imageryBaseMapsEarthCover, litter, mts, rangeland, rangeland management, sagebrush, shrub, shrub height, shrubland, shrubland change, shrubland ecosystems, shrublands, terrestrial ecosystems, time series, trends, vegetation, vegetation change, vegetation height, Fewer tags

Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection (RCMAP) Herbaceous Fractional Component Time-Series Across Western North America from 1985-2023

The RCMAP (Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection) dataset quantifies the percent cover of rangeland components across western North America using Landsat imagery from 1985-2023. The RCMAP product suite consists of ten fractional components: annual herbaceous, bare ground, herbaceous, litter, non-sagebrush shrub, perennial herbaceous, sagebrush, shrub, tree, and shrub height in addition to the temporal trends of each component. Several enhancements were made to the RCMAP process relative to prior generations. First, high-resolution training was revised using an improved neural-net classifier and modelling approach. These data serve as foundation to the RCMAP approach. The training database was...

Tags: AB, AZ, Alberta, Arizona, Arizona Plateau, All tags... Black Hills, Blue Mountains, CA, CO, California, Canada, Chihuahuan, Chihuahuan Desert, Colorado, Colorado Plateau, Columbia Plateau, Desert, Grand Canyon, Great Basin, Gunnison, ID, Idaho, MT, Mediterranean California, Middle Rockies, Mojave, Montana, ND, NE, NM, NV, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, North Plains, Northern Great Plains, Northern Great Salt Lake Desert, Northern Mountainous, Northern Rocky Mountains, OR, Oregon, Plains, Plateau, Prairie Provinces, Rocky Mountains, SD, SK, Saskatchewan, Sierra Nevada, Sonoran, Sonoran Desert, South Dakota, Southern Great Salt Lake Desert, Southern Rocky Mountains, Southwest Tablelands, TX, Texas, The Rockies, Three Forks, UT, United States, Utah, WA, WY, Wasatch, Washington, Western US, Wyoming, Wyoming Basin, Yellowstone, annual herbaceous, back-in-time, bare ground, big sagebrush, biota, climate change, environment, geoscientificInformation, grass, grassland change, herbaceous, imageryBaseMapsEarthCover, litter, mts, rangeland, rangeland management, sagebrush, shrub, shrub height, shrubland, shrubland change, shrubland ecosystems, shrublands, terrestrial ecosystems, time series, trends, vegetation, vegetation change, vegetation height, Fewer tags

Quantitative and Predictive Analysis: Landscape Connectivity of Isolated Waters for Wildlife in the Sonoran Desert

Executive Summary: We provide an analysis of Sonoran Desert water network connectivity to inform managers of current conditions for target wildlife and how the connectivity will change as the landscape becomes more water limited.Climate change is expected to lead to fragmentation of the network, increasing coalescence distance by 8% and reducing the persistence and overall number of waters on the landscape. Identification of key water sites, ranked by network connectivity metrics, are presented in Appendix B. Wetland number under our scenario of water limitation will decline by 43% reducing network resilience.Anurans and Caudates, although varying in ability to disperse, generally experienced reduced connectivity...

Categories: Data, Publication; Types: Citation, Downloadable, Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service, Shapefile; Tags: 2013, AZ-01, AZ-02, AZ-03, AZ-04, All tags... Academics & scientific researchers, Applications and Tools, Arizona, CA-36, CA-50, CA-51, California, Conservation Design, Conservation NGOs, Conservation Plan/Design/Framework, Data.gov Desert LCC, Datasets/Database, Decision Support, EARTH SCIENCE > BIOSPHERE > ECOSYSTEMS > TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS > WETLANDS, Federal resource managers, LCC Network Science Catalog, Publication, Report, Sonoran Desert, Transboundary Madrean Watersheds Pilot Area, United States, Vulnerability Assessment, biota, completed, connectivity, map, product, southwestern United States, water, wetlands, wildlife, Fewer tags

Webinar: Grassland Vulnerability to Climate Change in Southwest Deserts

Climate change predictions include warming and drying trends, which are expected to be particularly pronounced in the southwestern United States. In this region, grassland dynamics are tightly linked to available moisture, yet it has proven difficult to resolve what aspects of climate drive vegetation change.Here, we combine climate and soil properties with a mechanistic soil water model to explain temporal fluctuations in perennial grass cover, quantify where and the degree to which incorporating soil water dynamics enhances our ability to understand temporal patterns, and explore the potential consequences of climate change by assessing future trajectories of important climate and soil water variables.Our analyses...

Categories: Data; Tags: EARTH SCIENCE > LAND SURFACE > LANDSCAPE, LCC Network Science Catalog, LCC Network Science Catalog, chihuahuan desert, climate change, All tags... colorado plateau, completed, desert, ecohydrology, environment, grasslands, historic patterns, presentation, soil water, sonoran desert, southern rockies lcc, southern rockies lcc, vegetation change, water availability, Fewer tags

Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection (RCMAP) Fractional Component Time-Series Across the Western U.S. 1985-2020

The RCMAP (Rangeland Condition Monitoring Assessment and Projection) dataset quantifies the percent cover of rangeland components across the western U.S. using Landsat imagery from 1985-2020. The RCMAP product suite consists of eight fractional components: annual herbaceous, bare ground, herbaceous, litter, non-sagebrush shrub, perennial herbaceous, sagebrush, shrub and rule-based error maps including the temporal trends of each component. Several enhancements were made to the RCMAP process relative to prior generations. We used an updated version of the 2016 base training data, with a more aggressive forest mask and reduced shrub and sagebrush cover bias in pinyon-juniper woodlands. We pooled training data in areas...

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

Publication and Report: Ecosystem Water Balance in a Desert Grassland

​Abstract: Climate change predictions include warming and drying trends, which are expected to be particularly pronounced in the southwestern United States. In this region, grassland dynamics are tightly linked to available moisture, yet it has proven difficult to resolve what aspects of climate drive vegetation change. In part, this is because it is unclear how heterogeneity in soils affects plant responses to climate. Here, we combine climate and soil properties with a mechanistic soil water model to explain temporal fluctuations in perennial grass cover, quantify where and the degree to which incorporating soil water dynamics enhances our ability to understand temporal patterns, and explore the potential consequences...

Categories: Data, Publication; Types: Citation, Map Service, OGC WFS Layer, OGC WMS Layer, OGC WMS Service; Tags: 2012, AZ-02, AZ-03, AZ-04, Academics & scientific researchers, All tags... Applications and Tools, Arizona, Big Bend ‐ Río Bravo & Lower Río Conchos Pilot Area, CA-08, CO-03, California, Chihuahua, Chihuahuan Desert, Colorado Plateau, Conservation NGOs, Data.gov Desert LCC, Datasets/Database, Decision Support, EARTH SCIENCE > BIOSPHERE > VEGETATION, Federal resource managers, LCC Network Science Catalog, Mexico, Mojave Desert, Mojave Desert Pilot Area, NM-02, NV-03, NV-04, New Mexico, Population & Habitat Evaluation/Projection, Publication, Report, Sonora, Sonoran Desert, TX-16, TX-23, Transboundary Madrean Watersheds Pilot Area, UT-02, UT-03, United States, User Manual, Utah, Vulnerability Assessment, biota, climate change, completed, desert southwest, ecohydrology, plants, product, soil water, vegetation change, water availability, Fewer tags