Treesearch

QuickBird high resolution multispectral satellite imagery (60 cm GSD, 4 spectral bands) and calibrated products from DigitalGlobe’s AgroWatch program were used as inputs to Visual Learning System’s Feature Analyst automated feature extraction software to map localized occurrences of pervasive and aggressive Tamarisk (Tamarix ramosissima), an invasive species found along riparian corridors throughout the Western United States. Mapping was carried out along two major river systems known for widespread tamarisk invasions (Colorado River near Grand Junction, CO & Rio Grande River near Albuquerq...

A monitoring system plan is being developed in South America to assess critically endangered ecoregions. The system will be based on a previous ecosystem and biodiversity inventory developed through a large gap analysis program in five South American ecoregions. The monitoring system will include three main elements: (1) Landscape Ecology: vegetation cover, fragmentation and deforestation, infrastructure (road, dams, pipelines); (2) Biological guidelines: species richness, endemism, endangered species and species of a particular interest; and (3) Conservation Policy and Socio-Economic...

Legal concepts cannot be described as the area under the curve or in terms of equilibrium equations; however, law is one of several dimensions of a complex system that must be included in an interdisciplinary study of sustainability. It is one of the initial conditions to be considered in projecting the systems trajectory and it is also a constraint on implementation of research findings and recommendations for sustainable actions to be taken. Two methods for incorporating law into sustainability research are described. One is theoretical and is illustrated by how property rights affect...

A primary goal of wilderness stewardship is to protect individual wilderness areas from most anthropogenic change. Numerous agents of change threaten to degrade wilderness character. These agents of change are both internal (for example, grazing) and external (for example, polluting industries) to wilderness. They can be activities (for example, recreation use) or the indirect effects of activities (for example, invasion of exotic species), and can also be management actions (for example, fire suppression). Wilderness managers need information about both these agents of change (or threats)...

One initiative for large scale habitat restoration on the Rio Grande in central New Mexico is being led by a nonprofit organization, the Save Our Bosque Task Force. The Task Force has just completed a conceptual restoration plan for a 72-kilometer reach of river. The goals of the plan were to determine the potential for enhanced biological diversity through improved management of river processes. The specific river issues addressed in the plan include endangered species habitat improvement, fire management, and increased biodiversity through exotic species control and native plant establish...

Assessing threats to biodiversity is widely recognized as a critical step in conservation planning. While there have been recent advances in understanding how to assess threats at a site level, there has been relatively little consensus on how threats can be meaningfully assessed at an ecoregional scale. Drawing from numerous threat assessment studies, this paper offers a five-step framework for understanding the scope, purpose and components of a comprehensive, ecoregional-level threat assessment. The proposed framework includes the following components: 1) identifying threats within an...

The Sustainable Rangelands Roundtable (SRR) has explicitly included conservation and maintenance of soil and water resources as a criterion, a category of conditions or processes that can be assessed nationally to determine if the current level of rangeland management will ensure sustainability. Within the soil/water criterion, 10 indicators, 5 soil-based and 5 water-based, were developed through the expert opinions of rangeland scientists, rangeland management agency personnel, non-governmental organization representatives, practitioners, and other interested stakeholders. Out of these...

It seems increasingly clear that the primary challenge to the future preservation of wild landscapes will be adapting to the rapidly changing social and biophysical environments within which such areas exist. Established in large part as islands of naturalness, where human influences are minimized, wilderness ecosystems are now threatened by myriad changes, many of which result from external human activities over which wilderness managers have no control.

Private rangeland near many Western cities is disappearing rapidly under an onslaught of suburban and "ranchette" developments. As the "peopling of the New West" continues unabated, alarms have been raised on two fronts: by rural citizens and conservation groups troubled by the loss of agricultural production and biological diversity, and by urban interests that lament the loss of open space and recreation opportunity. Some counties and cities are taking steps to slow the rate of rangeland conversion by acquiring farms and ranches for use as open space, but that won't do much to ease rural...

This paper presents an assessment of fire weather and fire behavior predictions produced by a numerical weather prediction model similar to those used by operational weather forecasters when preparing their forecasts. The PSU/NCAR MM5 model is used to simulate the weather conditions associated with three fire episodes in June 2005. Extreme fire behavior was reported across the Southwest, Great Basin, and Southern California Incident Areas during this time period. By comparing the simulation results against reports of extreme fire behavior, the ability of the model to differentiate between...