Range

Resource Note 79

Page 1

NO. 79 DATE 07/5/05

Range

Laser Technology 

for Fire Rehabilitation Project 

Monitoring

By Robert Burton, Monitoring 

Specialist, BLM, Winnemucca Field 

Offi ce

S

pecialists from the 

Winnemucca (Nevada) Field 

Office are using innovative 

laser technology to monitor fire 

rehabilitation treatment performance on burned areas that have 

been reseeded. This technology can 

speed up the monitoring of rangelands for fire rehabilitation projects, fuels management projects, or 

rangeland transects that have been 

installed for standard rangeland 

monitoring.

Since spring 2004, the Emergency 

Stabilization and Rehabilitation 

(ESR) program monitoring team 

in Winnemucca has been working 

with the field office’s fuels management staff on the use of new, laserequipped sampling equipment. 

The equipment is designed to 

improve monitoring coverage and 

provide useful data for the ESR 

fuels and range program.

After the large fire rehabilitation 

projects were implemented as a 

result of the fires of 1999 and 

2000, the ESR monitoring team 

needed ways to improve their 

monitoring coverage of those large 

projects. With existing technology, 

the task was daunting at best, as 

some of the projects encompassed 

tens of thousands of acres. In 

evaluating the projects, the team 

needed to get an indication of the 

success of the project treatments, 

changes in the vegetation composition in the plant community, and 

a better understanding of invasion 

of the site by cheatgrass (Bromus 

tectorum L.) or other weeds.

Customarily, Mike Zielinski, a 

soil scientist, and I, a monitoring 

specialist, would monitor a plot of 

land by pounding two stakes in 

the ground at set intervals, such 

as every 200 feet or 100 meters, 

and tightly stretch a steel measuring tape between the stakes to 

create a transect. I would walk the 

length of the transect line, stopping at intervals of 20 feet or 20 

meters to place a 1-meter hoop 

on the ground to measure the 

density of the vegetation inside 

the hoop. I also measured basal 

or ground cover along the taped 

transect. Basal or ground cover 

are important measures of success 

for rehabilitation (or mined land 

reclamation) projects. In determining the success of these projects, 

they are often read for a period 

of at least 2 or 3 years after the 

treatment implementation. This 

traditional method of monitoring vegetation with the tape and 

hoop has worked well on small 

monitoring plots in burned areas, 

but not as well in the large fire 

rehabilitation projects that were 

implemented as a result of the fires 

in 1999 and 2000.

The field office staff researched 

various options for improving 

monitoring efficiency on large 

treatment areas and learned about 

the laser technology being used 

by Steven Viert, a consultant with 

Cedar Creek Associates, Inc. (CCA, 

Inc.), Fort Collins, Colorado. The 

contractor has been using a laserenhanced tool (Laser Point Bar) to 

measure vegetation cover at mining 

restoration sites. The equipment 

and design are proprietary to 

CCA, Inc.

In spring 2004, Winnemucca staff 

took the laser projection bar out to 

established ESR monitoring sites 

to test it on sites that had previously been monitored by conventional 

methodologies. By using sites 

having already established study 

plots, the staff was able to calibrate 

the laser projection bar against 

the results of cover measurements 

taken with the traditional methods. Figure. A Laser Point Bar projects points of lignt on the ground to generate data that can be 

used for measuring ground cover.
Range

Resource Note 79

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Staff found that in re-reading the 

data from established plots with 

the new equipment, the flow of 

data from the existing plots was 

fast and seamless.

To instill random selection 

into study site selection, the 

Winnemucca Field Office specialists use geographic information 

systems (GIS) software to stratify 

each treatment area by vegetation 

type, soil type, or any other critical 

ground coverage. They then generate random points from which to 

anchor their laser-enhanced tool 

monitoring studies.

To ensure proper resampling at any 

given study site, the soil scientist 

or ESR monitoring specialists use 

global positioning system (GPS) 

technology to locate their random 

points in the ESR treatments. They 

then place their transects on lines 

radiating from the anchor points, 

which follow randomly chosen 

compass directions. Transect 

samples include 10 subsamples, 

taken at each meter, over a 10-

meter area. The end result is 100 

subsamples per transect or sample, 

with each subsample covering an 

area of ground surface containing 

10 projected points of light from 

the tool. 

Specialists then space each transect 

line every 30 meters on the smaller 

treated areas and every 100 meters 

on the large treated areas, with 

each transect being laid along the 

monitoring line. The Laser Point 

Bar projects 10 evenly spaced 

0.5-millimeter points of light 

on the ground. As the point of 

light hits plants, bare ground, 

or litter, the data are recorded 

on a monitoring sheet. The 

laser-generated data are used to 

determine vegetation cover and 

frequency, and can be used to 

indicate a percentage of ground 

cover for the selected landscape.

I have estimated that this tool 

might allow field specialists to 

gather roughly 10 times the number of samples per transect as traditional methods, thereby decreasing 

the field time for gathering the 

data or, with equal time, increasing 

the number of transects representing a treatment area. The added 

precision of the 0.5-millimeter 

light point “hits” projected by the 

tool also reduces the possibility 

of operator error that sometimes 

results from existing manual monitoring methods and techniques 

and increases the speed by which 

decisions are made about what the 

point is contacting.

I also found the tool would enable 

monitoring more transects per 

site and give greater coverage of 

the ESR treatment areas, resulting in greater efficiencies and 

higher overall confidence in the 

data, which represent how a given 

area responds to any given treatment. In mining reclamation 

work, Viert found that “Ground 

cover is the preferred variable for 

determining revegetation success 

because, using this technology, a 

significant amount of cover data 

can be readily obtained in a statistically adequate, acceptable, and 

cost-effective manner. When using 

bias-free techniques, such as the 

point–intercept method, it is one 

of the most repeatable variables 

among independent observers.”

I conclude that the use of the more 

efficient technology allows a larger 

scale of coverage that would allow 

a view of fire rehabilitation treatments, and especially posttreatment 

results, on a landscape scale. 

The technology and the point–

intercept method are also being 

used by Utah ESR specialists on 

the Rattle fire rehabilitation 

project.

Contact

Robert Burton

Monitoring Specialist

Bureau of Land Management

Winnemucca Field Office

5100 E. Winnemucca Boulevard

Winnemucca, Nevada 89445

Phone: 775-623-1500

Fax: 775-623-1503

Email: Robert_Burton@blm.gov

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