Location: Range Management Research
Project Number: 3050-21600-001-121-I
Project Type: Interagency Reimbursable Agreement
Start Date: Aug 5, 2025
End Date: Sep 30, 2030
Objective:
Develop the Aeolian EROsion (AERO) model and Landscape Data Commons to expand the utility and applications of the tools for conservation planning and assessment for US ranchers and land managers.
Approach:
Wind erosion: The overall objectives of the position are:
1. Maintain AERO model code and develop AERO model to support CEAP-GL goals.
2. Provide guidance on the use of generalized benchmarks for analyzing national monitoring datasets and erosion model outputs for use by CEAP-GL. 3. Provide guidance on the use of temporal benchmarks for analyzing national monitoring datasets and erosion model outputs that account for variability in land health attributes at different temporal scales.
4. Develop AERO spatial predictions that represent probabilities of wind speeds at monthly, seasonal, and annual time scales and develop analyses of wind erosion spatial and temporal patterns to elucidate controlling factors and management effects.
5. Develop AERO Web Tool that enables NRCS staff and other grazing land managers to run custom AERO estimates to assess wind erosion risk and management scenarios.
6. Produce a national assessment of rangeland restoration and rehabilitation effects on wind erosion and other ecosystem services.
7. Establish airsheds for wind erosion hot spots across US rangelands and describe resource concerns that could influence the downwind impacts of dust emission.
8. Maintain AERO Web Tool code to support CEAP-GL goals and broader users.
9. Assess wind erosion risk across US rangelands to produce a national assessment.
Data commons: The overall objectives of the positions are:
10. Maintain and improve underlying software infrastructure of the Landscape Data Commons.
11. Maintain visualization and decision-support tools of the Landscape Data Commons including the Ecological Indicator Summary Tool (EIST), benchmark exploration tool, custom indicator calculator, and rangeland Soil Vulnerability Index for wind erosion risk (r-SVI wind).
12. Deploy EIST and r-SVI wind within the Landscape Data Commons infrastructure. 13. Connect data in the Landscape Data Commons to remote sensing and other rangeland datasets through the EIST and other Landscape Data Commons tools.
14. Develop a framework for managing uncertainty in benchmarks and monitoring data, erosion models and remote sensing models when applying benchmarks in analyses and decision making.
15. Integrate benchmarks into the EIST to enable quantitative benchmark analysis using the Landscape Data Commons and other standardized national monitoring datasets.
16. Maintain links to CEAP Grazing Lands tools within Landscape Data Commons toolbox.
17. Support CEAP-GL with multi-indicator analyses using datasets and tools of the Landscape Data Commons and associated products (e.g., Rangeland Analysis Platform) on US rangelands. 18. Incorporate the non-confidential aspects of the grazing lands on-site Natural Resources Inventory (NRI) data into the Landscape Data Commons to make the data available to conservation planners, researchers, and US producers to support decision making and research.