EcoRestore: Online Portal and Community of Practice for ecological restoration for Southwest rangelands and forests

An RREA (USDA Renewable Resources Extension Act Capacity Grant) was awarded to  further develop the information webpage EcoRestore to different states, including Nevada. The site will house restoration best recommendations based on relevant information gathered from peer reviewed literature, reports, fact sheets, infographics, workshop presentations, webinars, etc. on a state by state basis. In particular, it has a user-friendly interface that helps managers or homeowners create potential native plant lists based on county, elevation, soil type and aspect of site.

1. Create new portals within EcoRestore (which is currently specific to Arizona) for California, Nevada, and Utah. The goal is to provide a single online state-specific resource that any stakeholder – from a backyard gardener to a government land employee responsible for thousands of acres – can easily and quickly access for targeted information.
2. Publicize the new EcoRestore portals, and engage stakeholders in an innovative way by creating communities of practice through the portals. The medium-term goal is to create a network of EcoRestore portals across the Southwest, and the long-term goal is to create a network of EcoRestore portals across the Western U.S.

Approach

• Create list of native plants commonly used in restoration
• Use directed literature searches to create a database that lists various abiotic and biotic variables (e.g. climate envelope, soil type, substrate age, county, pollinators etc) for each species
• Create a user-friendly, web-based interface that helps create plant lists for specific locations based on cross referencing with state-specific databases
• Curate website to include other restoration information (e.g. invasive species, plant diseases) and link to useful state-specific sites (e.g. plant nurseries, volunteer groups, plant workshops, societies)