Rangeland Production Monitoring Service: In season forage and fuel projections

Rangeland vegetation growth is highly variable, often exceeding 40 percent variation on an interannual basis. Monitoring these changes and adjusting management actions, such as annual operating instructions or fire preparedness activities, is a costly and time-consuming endeavor, especially since there are roughly 662 million acres of rangelands in the conterminous United States. Given the increasing need for geospatial intelligence, decreasing resources for monitoring, and greater expectations by stakeholders, we developed the Rangeland Production Monitoring Service (RPMS). The Rangeland Production Monitoring Service enables retrospective monitoring (1984 to present) and in-season forage and fuel projections. The forage and fuel projections are currently available for Regions 1 and 4, and 5. There are west-wide beta products available as well, but these require more calibration in the near future. Part of these projections includes a separate assessment of annual herbaceous yield (e.g. cheatgrass), enabling managers to “see into the future.” These data are produced automatically on a weekly basis and are ready for managers and planners right now.  

Purpose

To give managers information about the timing and magnitude of rangeland yield in the growing season. This should improve decisions earlier in the season than ever possible before. 

Overview and Applicability

These data are directly applicable to:

1. Fire behavior assessment and strategic planning
2. Improving rangeland allotment management plans
3. NEPA Assessment
4. Plan Revision

Inputs

• Weekly Normalized Vegetation Index (NDVI)
• Daily precipitation
• Daily Evaporative Demand Drought Index

Outputs

• Annual production estimate of rangelands (Including 95th percentile prediction interval)
• Timing of the peak of green (Including 95th percentile prediction interval)
• Deviation of timing and yield from 15 year normal
• Yield of annual herbaceous fuel (e.g. red brome, cheatgrass)

Requirements

ArcGIS or other software, unless you just want to interact with the data viewing applications (see links below).

Restrictions and Limitations

There are no restrictions. Data are limited to non-forested (rangeland) landscapes. See Reeves and Mitchell (2011) for information on the spatial domain.