Public land management agencies, such as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), are charged with managing rangelands throughout the western United States for multiple uses, such as livestock grazing and conservation of sensitive species and their habitats. Monitoring of condition and trends of these rangelands, particularly with respect to effects of livestock grazing, provides critical informati...

Cattle and other livestock excrete endogenous steroid hormones, including estrogens, androgens, and progestins; therefore, allowing grazing livestock direct access to surface waters can result in the release of steroids in agricultural watersheds. Elevated concentrations of steroids are problematic because low concentrations of certain steroids can affect fish reproduction. To assess the occurr...

Afforestation of marginal agricultural lands represents a promising option for carbon sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems. An ecosystem carbon model was used to generate new national maps of annual net primary production (NPP), one each for continuous land covers of ‘forest’, ‘crop’, and ‘rangeland’ over the entire U. S. continental area. Direct inputs of satellite “greenness” data from the...

Drought is common in rangeland environments and an understanding of its impacts on the structure and function of rangeland ecosystems is paramount for developing effective management strategies. This research was the second of a series of studies investigating the impacts of varying seasonal droughts on northern Great Plains rangelands. Research was conducted on native rangeland during the 1998...

Rangeland monitoring services require the capability to investigate vegetation condition and to assess biomass production, especially in areas where local livelihood depends on rangeland status. Remote sensing solutions are strongly recommended, where the systematic acquisition of field data is not feasible and does not guarantee properly describing the spatio-temporal dynamics of wide areas. R...

Rangelands are globally extensive, provide fundamental ecosystem services, and are tightly coupled human-ecological systems. Rangeland sustainability depends largely on the implementation and utilization of various grazing and burning practices optimized to protect against soil erosion and transport. In many cases, however, land management practices lead to increased soil erosion and sediment f...

Renewable groundwater stress is quantified in the world's largest aquifersCharacteristic stress regimes are defined to determine the severity of stressOverstressed aquifers are mainly in rangeland biomes with some croplands.

al., 1994). Summed to 1-m depth, SOC content was not different between cropland and conservation reserve. Estimates of potential soil organic C (SOC) and total N (TN) In a shortgrass-steppe with 56 yr of grazing in Colorado, sequestration at depths below the traditional plow layer (i.e., 0–0.3 m) in agricultural systems are needed to improve our understanding of SOC was not different between un...

The need to balance biodiversity conservation with sustainable development, though widely agreed upon, is elusive in practice. Human societies are increasingly disconnected from the ecosystems which support them. The loosening connection and growing scientific acceptance that ecosystems are complex, dynamic, non-linear systems pose new challenges for rangeland monitoring. Consequently, although...

Restoration and revegetattion of rangeland ecosystems is based on knowledge of abiotic and biotic interactions that affect plant establishment. Once plants become autotropbic, interactions within and between plant species may occur and these interactions may range from antagonistic to mutualistic. This full range of potential interactions needs to be considered to ensure successful revegetation...