Asking "what-if" questions: New ST-Sim tool helps managers forecast future rangeland conditions

Paulette L. Ford; Matt C. Reeves

Treesearch

Asking "what-if" questions: New ST-Sim tool helps managers forecast future rangeland conditions

Informally Refereed

Authors:

Paulette L. Ford, Matt C. Reeves

Year:

2020

Type:

Science Bulletins and Newsletters

Station:

Rocky Mountain Research Station

Source:

Science You Can Use Tools, February 2020. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 2 p.

Download (PDF 872 KB)

Download (PDF 872 KB): https://research.fs.usda.gov/download/treesearch/64115.pdf

Abstract

How do land management decisions shape landscapes decades into the future? With the influence of climate change and its associated stressors, it’s an increasingly thorny question. According to Paulette Ford, a research ecologist with the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Albuquerque, New Mexico, “Land managers were coming to me and saying, ‘The rain’s coming too late in the season,’ or ‘We’ve got these weird fire cycles.’ What they’re talking about is unprecedented events and climate variability.”

Keywords

Science You Can Use, SYCU, land management, rangeland, climate variability

Citation

Ford, Paulette; Reeves, Matt. 2020. Asking "what-if" questions: New ST-Sim tool helps managers forecast future rangeland conditions. Science You Can Use Tools, February 2020. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 2 p.