# Presentation: 475355

## Integrated Landscape MonitoringGreat Basin Pilot

*Carol Schuler*
*Forest and Rangeland*
*Ecosystem Science Center*
*June  2007*

## To inform about the Great Basin Integrated Landscape Monitoring Project (GBILM)
To gain understanding of NPS landscape monitoring activities and needs in the Great Basin
To discuss how to make GBILM useful for the NPS
Project approach and direction
Ecosystem drivers
Management and monitoring questions
Example projects
Complement ongoing NPS activities

- To gain understanding of NPS landscape monitoring activities and needs in the Great Basin
- To discuss how to make GBILM useful for the NPS
- Project approach and direction
- Ecosystem drivers
- Management and monitoring questions
- Example projects
- Complement ongoing NPS activities

- Purpose and Desired Outcomes

**Notes:**
A partnership approach is essential for assuring a project’s relevance, usefulness, and success. Today I would like:
Fist 
to inform you about the Great Basin Integrated Landscape Monitoring Project (GBILM)

And second, at the end of presentation,  to open discussion:
to gain understanding of BLM landscape monitoring activities and needs in the Great Basin
discuss how to make GBILM useful for the BLM
Project approach and direction
Ecosystem drivers
Example projects
Management and monitoring questions 
Complement ongoing BLM activities

## USGS Science Thrust

- Pilot new concepts or promote new program areas
- Integrated landscape monitoring
- Reconcile site-specific actions/events with landscape-scale processes and functions
- 4 pilots
- Lower Mississippi Valley
- Prairie Potholes
- Puget Sound
- Great Basin

**Notes:**
USGS Science Thrust to develop national framework for Integrated Landscape Monitoring 
Despite most mgt actions being taken locally, a landscape perspective to management challenges is required because the managed resources are subject to regional and global processes, stressors and changes, and the cumulative effects of individual management actions.
The 4 pilot locations were chosen because of:
Substantial DOI client presence
Strong partnership foundation and potential opportunities
Expressed needs from DOI agency partners

## Integrated Landscape Monitoring

**Goal:**
- Reconcile site-specific actions/events with landscape-scale processes and functions
- Address priority natural resource management and policy issues at the landscape scale
- Integrated: among government agencies, stakeholders, scientific disciplines; and across political and jurisdictional boundaries
- Landscape: spatial and temporal scales
- Monitoring: collection and analysis of repeated observations to evaluate change

**Notes:**
The ILM: 
Integrated: among governmental agencies, stakeholders, scientific disciplines, across geographic, political, and ecological boundaries.
Landscape:  spatially explicit, at multiple spatial and temporal scales, spatial arrangement of geographic elements, topology, composed of points, lines, networks, or areas.
Monitoring:  collection and analysis of repeated observations or measurements to evaluate changes in condition and progress toward meeting a management objective.

## Great Basin ILM Goal

- Develop and test integrated landscape-level monitoring that addresses priority management issues and provides capabilities to detect and predict landscape change.
- Understand cumulative effects of local actions/events
- Understand change at landscape scale
- Develop predictive capability of landscape change
- Develop or refine monitoring strategies
- Prioritize actions such as mitigation and restoration

**Notes:**
Describe the approach and first-year results of the Great Basin Integrated Landscape Monitoring Project. 
Great Basin provides an opportunity to test concepts and develop the tools needed to analyze monitoring data and understand change at multiple scales, and ultimately provide a predictive capability for landscape change. This pilot is focused on reconciling local, site-specific actions and natural events with landscape-scale processes and functions in an effort to provide a monitoring capability at the landscape scale. 

cumulative effects: acknowledge increasing legal challenges (and losses) over analysis and consideration of cumulative effects in NEPA and associated decisions
why landscape monitoring is important and what it can do for BLM

## The Great Basin

- Over 111 million acres
- Five western states
- 78% public lands
- N-S Mountain ranges
- Varied elevational gradients
- Water drains inland

- Blue boundary – GB boundary
- Orange boundary – GB with 50 m buffer

**Notes:**
Now Id like to describe the unique area we are working in and why it is an ideal location for a landscape-scale, interdisciplinary approach. 
Large area covering five states: OR, CA, NV, UT, ID. Almost all of the State of Nevada is included
The majority of the area is in public ownership, with the BLM overseeing the majority of the public land
Often recognized and defined by the fact that water does not drain to the ocean but to interior drainages only
Also has large number of north to south tending mountain ranges
We also included the Columbia Plateau, which drains to the Pacific Ocean based on similarities with the Great Basin in climate, physical environment, vegetation, and management issues. 

Ee consulted the BLM Great Basin Restoration Initiative (with help of Mike Pellant)...this boundary is fairly similar to GBRI; we go farther northwest to include Columbia Plateau; and don’t go north of the Snake River Plain in Idaho

## Why Focus on The Great Basin?

- Species of concern (e.g., sage-grouse, pygmy rabbit, Brewer’s sparrow, Virgin River chub)
- 54% of remaining sagebrush
- Diverse & accelerating stressors
- Urban expansion
- Limited water supply
- Spread of invasive species
- Altered fire cycle

**Notes:**
Climate is one of the most varied and extreme in the world; 
As a result, the region includes many unique habitats....e.g. Within 20 kilometers, a single basin can include treeless alpine bogs and rocky slopes, coniferous forests, mountain shrublands, pygmy woodlands of Pinyon pine or juniper, lower slopes of sagebrush and grasses, lake shores that support an entirely different array of shrubs and flowers, sand dunes, and playas. 
In addition,  riparian areas and aquatic habitats are rare but critical in this dry landscape.
Many species of animals have become uniquely adapted to this area and the regions is known for its large number of endemic native plants and animals 
Great Basin is home to about 100 bird, 70 mammal, and 23 amphibian and reptile species. 
Among the wildlife are antelope, elk, mountain sheep, mule deer, wild horses, sage grouse, horned lizards, black-tailed jackrabbits, pigmy rabbits and many others. It is home to the largest population of badgers in the world.
It is also home to many plants, some of which are threatened or endangered. Over 54% of the remaining  western USA sagebrush stands are within the Great Basin

## GBILM - Phased Approach

- Established interdisciplinary team
- USGS, NPS (Marie Denn, Angie Evenden, Debra Hughson),  BLM, FWS, and EPA
- Develop project scope
- Limited resources
- Mine, evaluate, and analyze existing data
- Website (myUSGS.gov)

**GBILM - Phased Approach**

**Notes:**
For the GBILM, We used a phased approach to meet our goal: 
Establish team: the first step was to establish a team that included representation from all USGS disciplines and members from other agencies including Mike Pellant and Nora DeVoe from BLM. 
Develop project scope: Rely on existing site-specific data rather than collecting new data due to limitations on funding and staff availability.  Evaluate data quality and identify data gaps.  Develop tools to analyze data at landscape scale.  Ultimately will advise agencies on data value.
Despite most management actions being taken locally, a landscape perspective to management challenges is required because the managed resources are subject to regional and global processes, stressors and changes, and the cumulative effects of individual management actions. 
We also will rely on existing data, rather than collecting new data. Agencies collect lots of local, site-specific data. We will assess data quality, compatibility and data gaps. This will also help to inform agencies regarding their data and future data collection needs.  

## Phased Approach

**Phased Approach**

- Develop conceptual models
- Identify and prioritize ecosystem drivers
- Develop and prioritize management questions
- Develop pilot projects to address management questions
- Mine, compile, and analyze existing data
- Develop tools to analyze data
- 	at multiple scales
- Identify data gaps
- Predict and monitor changes

**Notes:**
Our phased approached also involved the following,  which I will be discussing in greater detail in the next few slides...
Development of conceptual models
Identifying and prioritizing ecosystem drivers
Developing and prioritizing management questions
And then all along the way vetting these ideas and concepts with our partners.

## Conceptual Models: Tools for Understanding

**Conceptual Models: Tools for Understanding**

- Describes key ecological components and relationships between them
- Used for planning, communicating, and prioritizing
- GBILM Models:
- Characterize landscape function
- Identify ecological processes
- Develop/prioritize management issues
- Inform monitoring strategy development
- Identify gaps in understanding of ecosystem
- 	function

**Notes:**
In general, ecological models express a progression of scientific thought that starts with determining key ecological components, and ends with a summary of the causal ordering and relationships among them.  
Conceptual models are specific tools for planning, communicating, and prioritizing these ecological components and relationships.  
Conceptual models are a necessary part of ecological monitoring because they focus and define the scope of the monitoring program; however, they are not an end product in and of themselves.  
The GBILM pilot project created a set of conceptual ecosystem models to develop an overarching characterization of landscape function, identify key ecological processes and services, guide development and prioritization of the most pressing resource management questions, inform regional monitoring strategy development, and identify critical gaps in our understanding of ecosystem function.  
This section describes: 1) the process used to develop the conceptual models, 2) the framework for ecosystem models, and 3) draft sub-models to illustrate our approach of scaling from a coarse-scale model to system-specific models. 

## Framework  Model

- Systems Model: Dry System

- Control Model: Sagebrush steppe

- Stressor  Model: Fire/Invasives Interactions

**Notes:**
The conceptual model building process was Hierarchical:
coarse-scale model to system-specific models 
Prioritized wet and dry systems. Importance of water to deserts of the Great Basin as a way to distinguish between precipitation-event-driven systems (‘dry’ systems) and surface- and groundwater-systems (‘wet’ systems), which respond to precipitation at longer time scales.  
Wet and dry systems are described in a hierarchy of models, with each model tier successively more focused on specific ecological  habitats and processes. 

So as not to overwhelm you with numerous slides of the models, this slide just provides you with an overview of our hierarchical approach to our modeling. From left to right, top to bottom, We step down in our “dry system” hierarchy.

To the right, we focus in on the dry system only.
Bottom left: Focus in on the Sagebrush Steppe component of the Dry system.
Bottom Right: Fire/Invasives in the Sagebrush Steppe.

## Ecosystem Drivers

*“**Ecosystem drivers are any natural or human-induced factor that directly or indirectly causes a change in an ecosystem.”*
*	**	**	**	**	**	**	**Carpenter et al., 2006*

*Altered Flow Regime*

*Erosion*

**Notes:**
We defined ecosystem drivers as “....”
For the GBILM, we focus on ecosystem drivers, both natural and anthropogenic, that are the primary causes of change in Great Basin ecosystems. 
We identified 30 drivers (e.g. climate change, fire regime, livestock grazing, roads etc. )
Drivers were used to explain impacts on systems

## Drivers of Change

**Notes:**
The iterative process of prioritizing and reevaluating ecosystem drivers and vetting the outcomes before land management agency representatives, led the GBILM team to identify these highest priority drivers

## Three Priority Drivers

- Water Extraction (Wet System)
- Fire and Invasive Species Interaction (Dry System)
- Land Treatments (Dry System)

**Notes:**
Initially, the GBILM will focus on three of the priority drivers to test the approach of developing management questions and analyzing existing data to begin to answer these questions. 
The 3 drivers selected for extended evaluation are :
         ground water extraction in the wet system
         invasives-fire interaction and 
         land treatments in the dry system
These have been selected based on their importance to managers and communities, ecological significance, and availability of data.

## Management Questions

- Why develop management questions?
- Foundation for landscape monitoring program
- Reflect real-life needs of management partners
- Bring focus and relevance to our work
- Provide basis for evaluating interactions among management actions, environmental factors, and landscape change

**Notes:**
So, the next step was to develop management questions based on the identified priority drivers. Why? Because:

## Project Development

**Project Development**

- Develop focused projects to address questions
- Data mining and evaluation
- Identify data gaps
- Data analysis to assess status and trends, and predict change
- Identify and communicate* *how results can inform management
- Identify research needs
- Develop or refine monitoring strategies

**Notes:**
Develop management questions which reflect compelling real-life needs of our management agency partners 
Data analytic approach to mine, analyze, and integrate monitoring and other data across spatial scales. 
Evaluate data quality and comparability, data gaps, and additional monitoring needs. 
Use analysis to detect historic trends and initiate predictions about how future environmental change and management activities may impact these processes. 
These predictions will identify monitoring indicators and approaches that would ultimately test, validate, and refine the predictions. 
Our ability to make predictions will be highly dependent on the availability and quality of the data. 
Findings and analytical tools will aid managers in real-life applications such as setting priorities for fire management and habitat restoration, analyzing cumulative impacts as required by law, and understanding how local actions relate to landscape-scale matters such as species conservation and habitat fragmentation. 

## Example 1: Water Extraction Project

*Management Questions** *
- How will increased water extraction impact phreatophytes?
- Can phreatophytic communities act as indicators of impacted groundwater systems?
*Pilot Project*
- Identify locations of phreatophytic communities and correlate with aquifer flow system conditions.
- Identify areas at risk from increased water withdrawals.
*      *

**Notes:**
The first project: Potential Phreatophytic Land Cover in the Great Basin and Relationship to Groundwater Withdrawals.

## Water Extraction Project

*Pilot Project Tasks*
- Map phreatophytic land cover by categorizing evapotranspiration as a function of critical characteristics:
- Geomorphology, vegetation species composition, elevation, hydrology
- Map groundwater change over time
- Evaluate change over time to phreatophytic land cover
*Applicability to Management Questions*
- Provides assessment of status and trends of groundwater
- Establishes dataset of phreatophyte coverage across Great Basin
- Identifies environmental areas of concern or sensitivity
- Addresses utility of phreatophytes as indicators of impacts to groundwater system
- Develop tools that help to predict and manage for the effects                                 of groundwater extraction across the Great Basin

**Notes:**
The first project: Potential Phreatophytic Land Cover in the Great Basin and Relationship to Groundwater Withdrawals.
Collect data layers (e.g. vegetation, elevation, hydrology) to develop spatial analysis models
Conduct analyses to detect temporal changes in water level within ground-water systems.
Correlate vegetation mapping with ground water flows and identify areas at risk
Develop maps of change in Great Basin’s ground-water levels

## Potential Phreatophytic Land Cover

**Potential Phreatophytic Land Cover**

- Map scale is 1:1,500,000

**Notes:**
This “proof of concept” phreatophytic land cover map is the draft final product, which will be helpful as a baseline for future change detection analysis. 

Since phreatophytes act as surface indicators of groundwater behavior (outflow and transmissivity) mapping these species can help identify data gaps in our regional knowledge of aquifer flow systems.  Phreatophyte information can also be used (with regional hydrology data) to identify areas at risk from increasing demands on the water supply (i.e., due to increasing needs from urban development or agriculture). 

## Example 2: Fire and Invasive Species

**Example 2: Fire and Invasive Species**

*Management Questions*
- How should managers prioritize efforts to manage fire cycles with the goal of retaining and restoring desired plant communities?
*Pilot Project*
- Use spatial patterns of fire and landscape characteristics to evaluate how invasive plants have altered fire regimes
- Create models and a sampling design to monitor and assess changes in fire regimes and vegetation over time

**Notes:**
The second project: Official Title: Fire Regimes in the Great Basin: Spatio-Temporal Correlates and Future Scenarios

## Fire and Invasive Species

*Pilot Project Tasks*
- Create maps of fire distributions over time in the Great Basin
- Evaluate hypotheses on how invasive plants have altered fire regimes and how these relationships may change in the future
- Create models and a sampling design to monitor and assess changes in fire regimes and vegetation over time
*Applicability to Management Questions*
- Develop tools to monitor and predict fire regimes among major vegetation types
- Evaluates and predicts trends for altered fire regimes among major vegetation types
- Assesses vegetation types at risk to altered fire regimes due to invasive species, landscape characteristics, and climate change scenarios
- Prioritizes major vegetation types for suppression and mitigation actions designed to prevent the establishment of grass/fire cycles

**Notes:**
Create maps of fire distributions over time in the Great Basin.
Evaluate hypotheses on how invasives have altered fire regimes and how these relationships may change in the future.
Create models and a sampling design to monitor and assess changes in fire regimes and vegetation over time.

## Fire and Invasive Species

**Notes:**
Fires we're using in our analyses.  
It's based on the western north american fires dataset put together by sean finn et al.  
It includes fires from 1970 to 2003, although for nevada and oregon the fire polygons are generally only available from 1981 to 2003, while the polygons for southern idaho seem more complete going back to 1970. 

## Example 3: Land Treatments

**Example 3: Land Treatments**

*Management Questions** *
- How are different land treatments influencing vegetation and wildlife habitats?
- How and where can land managers use land treatments to achieve multiple objectives, including maintaining and restoring wildlife habitat?
*Pilot Project*
- Synthesis of monitoring efforts in the Great Basin
- Assess and predict effects of land treatments at various scales                       on wildlife habitat
- Initial focus on areas in Utah and the tri-states targeted for                            HLI funding
- Eventually expand to rest of Great Basin

## Land Treatments

- Create relational database of treatment information (1950 to present)
- Treatment description, monitoring information, spatial data, reference photos, etc.
- Develop predictive models on effects of treatments on wildlife habitats
- Evaluate which land treatments can be used to improve habitat connectivity and where they can be placed (*in a landscape context*)
*Management Application*
- Establishes a common database and maps of land treatments                  across Great Basin
- Provides predictive models that estimate effects	of land treatments on wildlife habitats, particularly sage grouse and other high profile species
- Provides information on treatment effectiveness

**Land Treatments**

**Notes:**
1. Acquire existing data on treatments from 1950 to present.
2. Develop predictive models on effects of treatments on wildlife habitats.
3. Evaluate which land treatments can be used to improve habitat connectivity and where they can be placed (in a landscape context)

Applicability:
This study will:
Provide information on the effectiveness of a variety of different treatments, in different contexts, for different species and 
  Will provide information on how climate change and anthropogenic stressors effect land trt results.
It will also provide a database and maps of landtreatments for the Great Basin
The data will be designed to encourage addition of new trt each yr to be useful to managers for tracking trtments.

## Land Treatments Database

- Source:  Five Mile Mountain Sagebrush Restoration Project EA

**Notes:**
ANIMATED SLIDE!
One of the pilot project tasks is to build an accessible database that links all of our information together as illustrated by this slide.
CLICK: For example, general yes/no treatment information from the main table, would be built from a subtable providing more detailed information on type of treatment.

CLICK 2: Similarly, detailed monitoring data would be available in the subtable providing informaiton on monitoring method, source location etc.

CLICK 3: If spatial data were available, the general table would provide that information and would provide a link to that spatial map or other data source.

## Long-term Value

**Long-term Value**

- Builds understanding of ecosystem processes
- Identifies priority management issues and ensures research is relevant
- Can address additional management questions and drivers
- Fill data gaps and identify new research needs
- Informs management issues and practices at landscape scales
- Develops or refines long-term monitoring strategies
- Ultimately, provides a
- 	 predictive capability of
- 	 landscape change

**Notes:**
Pilot to Program

Full implementation of a landscape monitoring program
Address additional drivers and management questions
Fill data gaps
Develop or refine monitoring strategies
Identify research needs
Develop predictive capability

## What are the collaboration opportunities between NPS and USGS?
Focusing on most appropriate management questions?
Addressing high priority monitoring needs?
Making results more accessible and useful?
Who should we communicate with to build buy-in and obtain input?

- Focusing on most appropriate management questions?
- Addressing high priority monitoring needs?
- Making results more accessible and useful?
- Who should we communicate with to build buy-in and obtain input?

**Discussion Topics – Seeking Your Advice**

**Notes:**
The future of the sagebrush biome is important not only to many species of wildlife but to the human communities who live in and use the biome’s resources 
Despite declining trends in habitat and sagebrush species, there is potential to conserve and restore native sagebrush (the positive message) 
Recovery is long-term, no easy fixes
Important to recognize that changes and declines are widespread, complex, and difficult to manage
Will need to work together to address these changes
So how can research help, and how does USGS best contribute?
Some research needs to be big picture. 
Broad-scale information is important in order to provide context for local decisions and options for coordination 
USGS well positioned to collect and analyze information that crosses jurisdictional boundaries. (No management mandate or jurisdiction). 
Objectively describe where change is occurring and the associated effects. 
Plus we can do this type of work in the context of effective partnerships. We are respected and sought out for our science as an agency. 
Effects of habitat change on sagebrush-obligate species. We acknowledge that many sagebrush obligate species are declining. But we do not understand the underlying cause for population trends or habitat changes. 
We have the capability to address these questions. We have taken a lead with this question for sage-grouse and other sagebrush birds, and we are poised to do more with other species.
Conservation and restoration of habitats.  
provide the information and tools to assist land and resource managers in implementing the most effective restoration actions based on their management objectives. 
Long-term monitoring and associated data management. USGS can play an important role in designing monitoring protocols. Then management agencies can conduct the information, and we can turn around and help with the analysis. Experience has shown that development of effective status and trends studies requires clear objectives as a starting point and active participation by personnel who will use the information. It also requires a long-term commitment to document and safeguard the information that is collected. Again, there's a dominant role for the USGS because it is a federal agency and can make and keep long-term commitments.
Science Communication. As an agency we take the commitment to communicate our results very seriously. This role also relates to partnership. It is an essential part of adaptive management. We gain as well as the managers in an iterative process of learning by doing followed by additional learning.
 All in the context of partnership and adaptive management.
Future of the biome is important to wildlife and people

## Slide 28