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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Boise, Idaho » Northwest Watershed Research Center » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #115541
Title: NATIONAL RESOURCE INVENTORY(NRI) ON BLM LANDS IN COLORADO: AN EVALUATION OF THE RANGELAND HEALTH MODEL

Author
item SPAETH, K - NRCS
item Pierson Jr, Frederick
item PELLANT, M - BLM
item THOMPSON, D - NRCS

Submitted to: Society for Range Management Meeting Abstracts
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/13/2000
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Congress has challenged the Federal agencies to develop inventory and assessment methodologies on rangeland which are acceptable to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), USDA-Forest Service, and Natural Resources Conservation Service(NRCS). A nationwide comprehensive Natural Resources Inventory(NRI)on rangeland has been conducted on non-Federal owned lands by the Natural Resources Conservation Service(NRCS)since 1982.In BLM, there has been considerable effort to develop a national inventory methodology; however, none of the efforts have been universally excepted and/or economically feasible. A cooperative agreement was established between BLM and NRCS to test a new NRI methodology, which include the Rangeland Health Model, on 7.6 million acres of public land in Colorado. NRCS provided the initial statistical design for the project which was consistent with their national NRI assessment platform. Field data was collected by four interagency crews at 332 sites throughtout the state from June 1 until mid-October, 1997. The field effort represents the most comprehensive survey on this scale to date and the data represents 6 Major Land Resource Area's(MLRA's), 75 ecological site names, and 155 soil names, 293 unique soil taxonomic classifications, 17 rangeland health factors, and 620 plant species. This study represents a multivariate analysis of this data with emphasis on rangeland health factors and plant species indicators.