Location: Range Management Research
Project Number: 3050-21600-001-008-A
Project Type: Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Jul 1, 2024
End Date: Sep 30, 2026
Objective:
The overall goals of this project are to build on the foundation of land health monitoring that has been established through current and prior USDA-BLM-NSMU partnerships and continue to cooperatively develop and implement the AIM Strategy to support management decision making at multiple scales and for a diverse suite of natural resource applications.
Approach:
1. Support field implementation of AIM monitoring projects in collaboration with BLM staff by: supporting monitoring project design and implementation for AIM-related projects as needed; continuing to research, develop, and support software packages (e.g., terradactyl) and tools (e.g., the Rangeland Indicator Calculation) for monitoring data indicator calculations and to facilitate integration of monitoring data into BLM’s national monitoring database; supporting the BLM on the development and implementation of tools for designing monitoring projects and tracking their implementation in consistent and well-documented ways; and supporting and maintaining the web and other digital resources which organize and disseminate rangeland monitoring content and information related to AIM monitoring.
2. Provide training of BLM staff and partners in monitoring protocols, project implementation, and analysis; including continued support in the development of training materials (e.g., websites, manuals, videos) to support AIM Core Methods trainings, AIM Project Leads trainings, and Analysis workshops.
3. Participate in knowledge sharing, training, workshops, meetings, and individual interactions with BLM technical staff so that both ARS and BLM members of the AIM team are familiar with and able to implement monitoring design, indicator calculations, and analysis tools as needed to support the BLM AIM program.
4. Research, develop, and implement workflows and tools for monitoring data analysis and reporting including software packages to increase efficiencies in weighted analyses of landscape condition, restoration monitoring workflows, and custom indicators for use in wildlife habitat assessments, land-use plan effectiveness, and land health evaluations.
