Proceedings brand creation for a prescribed fire culture – utilizing key social media parameters. Lars Coleman*1, J. Kelly Hoffman1, Thomas McDaniel1, R. Patrick Bixler2, Urs P. Kreuter1, Morgan Russell3

Natural resource managers need flexibility in implementation of management practices due to the unpredictable nature of the environment being managed.  The ability to adapt management prescriptions for grazing allotments on federal land is complicated by many factors.  Laws, regulations, policies, and their interpretation and implementation at various decision levels can confound efforts to apply adaptability in grazing management.  Different barriers to the application of adaptability in managing federal grazing allotments are discussed to provide a basis for identifying potential solutions.

ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT IN THE SOUTHWEST: LESSONS FROM THE CORONADO NATIONAL FOREST IN SE ARIZONA. James K. Heitholt*; US Forest Service, Tucson, AZ

ABSTRACT

Adaptive management strategies are essential to managing livestock on rangelands. In the semi-arid climate of SE Arizona it has become increasingly more important to be as flexible as possible in the management of livestock. Many factors can and do lead to the derailment of a plan for grazing allotments on the forest. Factors may include: drought, fire, invasive species, international border impacts, or a combination of factors. These factors that may change a plan require the agency to make changes to management, monitor the changes and their effects, and follow-up with documentation to support agency actions.

ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT IS AN EXAMINATION FOR DISCOVERY
. Jim Sprinkle*; University of Idaho, Carmen, ID

ABSTRACT

To borrow from the legal profession, an “examination for discovery” is a process which is partially undertaken to discover relevant facts and areas of agreement prior to a civil trial. For natural resources,  this can be viewed as a means to apply adaptive management on the ground. For some management actions, there may be a body of data collection which supports the pursuit of a specific treatment. However, some circumstances may necessitate using repeated observations as a starting point from which to launch a management practice. In either case, the proposed action should be validated by the scientific method: forming a hypothesis, formulating a sample design with sufficient replication to evaluate the hypothesis, collecting data, analyzing the data, and rejecting or accepting the hypothesis as effective for management purposes. With this feedback loop, the proposed action can be evaluated for efficacy to achieve desired goals and management can be adjusted accordingly. This entire process works best when done in a collaborative fashion with agency, permittee, and University involvement. Barriers to the adaptive process include land managers who are risk adverse, permittees who are entrenched in tradition or constrained by financial limitations, and researchers who lack personal adaptability in sample design and data collection. For all involved, flexibility is required. An example for this type of collaborative flexibility is provided from the Southwest where the goal was to transform a high elevation “biological desert” with a high occurrence of an invasive non-native grass species to a site with more native grasses.

FLEXIBILITY: INSIGHTS FROM SUCCESSFUL RANCHERS

Successful ranching families maintain flexibility in their operations over decades to multi-generational time spans. Interviews and focus groups with ranchers in the Western Great Plains help rangeland scientists understand flexibility, and barriers to flexibility, from a “ranchers’ perspective”. I seek to describe the multiple scales at which flexibility is important to ranchers by analyzing qualitative interviews with 16 cow-calf and cow-calf plus yearling operations, as well as data from a focus group of yearling operators in eastern Colorado and eastern Wyoming.   These case studies reveal specific ways that simultaneous climatic, socio-cultural, ecological and economic variability drive ranchers to emphasize flexible, adaptive management approaches, even as rangeland management trends toward intensification. I describe how this flexibility is maintained through social adaptations, ecological knowledge/learning and through technological innovation. Ranchers describe how they seek flexibility in their 1) cultural traditions and personal, ethical decision-making processes, 2) through their grazing management and drought planning and practices, and 3) through social networks/relationships.  I critically examine these rancher-reported sources of flexibility in light of the heterogeneity and resilience approaches to rangeland/natural resource management presented in recent literature. These insights into flexibility from successful ranchers ground adaptive management in a real-world context that can inform efforts by rangeland scientists and public land management agencies to promote flexibility in public/private rangelands. 

A FRAMEWORK FOR SCALING UP CONSERVATION OF WET HABITATS IN SAGEBRUSH COUNTRY. Jeremy Maestas*¹, Thad Heater², Dave Naugle³, Patrick Donnelly⁴, Brady Allred³, Nick Silverman³, Michael Brown⁵; ¹Natural Resources Conservation Service, Portland, OR, ²Natural Resources Conservation Service, Reno, NV, ³University of Montana, Missoula, MT, ⁴U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Missoula, MT, ⁵Pheasants Forever, Wenatchee, WA

In the semi-arid sagebrush ecosystems of the American West, seasonal periods of water scarcity limit primary productivity and the distribution of associated mesic resources important to wildlife and ranching. Riparian areas, wet meadows and other mesic sites—such as high elevation rangelands and irrigated fields—are among the last places to retain enough soil moisture to remain productive late in the growing season. As summer heat dries out upland soils, species like sage-grouse, along with livestock and many other wildlife species, follow the green line seeking out wetter, more productive areas. These wet “mesic habitats” serve as grocery stores providing nutritious forage, including the protein-rich forb and insect foods required by sage-grouse chicks. Yet, mesic habitats occupy only a tiny fraction of the sagebrush ecosystem and have varying degrees of drought resiliency. Recently, the NRCS-led Sage Grouse Initiative (SGI) launched a campaign across eleven western states to accelerate protection, restoration, and enhancement of these mesic habitats to benefit working lands and wildlife. While mesic habitat conservation can be beneficial wherever it occurs, limited resources and the desire to make measurable progress necessitate a strategic approach. We present SGI’s framework for scaling up implementation of targeted mesic habitat conservation practices designed to keep water on the land and boost resilience to drought. Combining mesic habitat conservation with ongoing efforts in sagebrush uplands creates a more holistic ecosystem approach for benefiting western rangelands from ridge tops to valley bottoms.

PATTERNING ECOLOGICAL MINIMUMS; SEASONAL DROUGHT AND SPATIOTEMPORAL DYNAMICS OF PRIMARY PRODUCTION IN THE SAGEBRUSH BIOME.
. Patrick Donnelly*¹, Brady Allred², Dave Naugle², Nick Silverman²; ¹U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Missoula, MT, ²University of Montana, Missoula, MT

ABSTRACT

In semi-arid ecosystems annual and intra-annual precipitation variance lead to frequent periods of water scarcity that act as ecological minimums to alter and constrict patterns of primary production.  We use the North American semi-arid sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) biome as a model system to evaluate long-term soil water dynamics and their spatiotemporal influence on landscape productivity during seasonal drought.  Remote sensing and normalized differenced vegetation index derived from 15,180 Landsat satellite images were used as a proxy to examine soil water availability through shifting vegetative productivity on 600,000 sites from 1984 to 2016.  Evaluations were conducted within a spatial ecohydrologic framework that partitioned the broader biome into regions along gradients of soil water dynamics.  Ecohydrologic sensitivity to annual precipitation variance and geophysical settings were measured within functional soil water pathways; ‘groundwater’, ‘pulse-water’, and ‘irrigation-water’ that explained heterogeneity in landscape response.  Despite only a 12% difference in mean annual precipitation and similar evapotranspiration rates, productivity during drought differed by 97% across ecohydrologic regions.  Model results identified divergent ecological trade-offs specific to regions that exploited characteristics of deep soil or pulse soil water dynamics to leverage landscape productivity during drought.  Groundwater systems were least sensitive to precipitation variance and occurred at double the proportional rate (51%) in regions of higher deep soil water potential.  High sensitivity to precipitation change in pulse dominated regions were tempered by rapid productivity response that increased the extent of these sites nine times greater than other regions.  Pulse water sites in some regions offset drought sensitivity using altitudinal shifts and occurred on average 300-400 m above more resilient groundwater sites.  Findings provide new insight to functional mechanisms of drought induced ecological minimums that contribute important context to accelerate adaptation of predicted long-term fluctuations in climatic patterns anticipated to alter water balance across mid-latitude semi-arid regions.

PRACTICAL GRAZING MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES TO MAINTAIN OR RESTORE RIPARIAN FUNCTIONS AND VALUES ON RANGELANDS. Sherman R. Swanson*¹, Sandra Wyman²; ¹University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, NV, ²Bureau of Land Management, Prineville, OR

New laws dramatically changed rangeland management in the 1970s and riparian areas became a public land focus.  Big meadows and problem areas were protected with fences.  Exclosures demonstrated the contrast between management that allowed concentrated and prolonged use that impaired riparian plants and stream functions versus total protection. A focus on stream classification provided a process to stratify and delineate based on hydrologic, vegetation, and geomorphic attributes, processes, and features. Increased emphasis on sage-grouse habitat requirements focused managers on mesic forbs and well-timed grazing. Streams with significant wildlife and other values occur in mixed ownership watersheds with private and public lands. Watershed scale issues require a water catchment scale management approach. Focusing communities of stakeholders on physical riparian functions continues to build support for riparian stewardship, for healthy water-loving plants slowing and storing floodwaters across and under broad floodplains.  A search for riparian compatible grazing systems failed to provide the silver bullet, but provided an abundance of tools and strategies that work or don’t work in different settings and for meeting different needs. We now know that riparian areas are resilient and recover with proper management and associated tools. Grazing to allow plant health with moderate use or short periods of use, adequate recovery periods, and altering grazing periods, provide the focus to improve or maintain watersheds. Emphasizing either planned disturbance with ample recovery periods or decreasing disturbance with limited levels of use provides managers with a fundamental choice. That choice drives management actions, criteria for success, and appropriate criteria for short- and long-term (implementation and effectiveness) monitoring. Adaptive management creates greater resilience and increases management options if it combines practices to maintain or restore riparian functions and values. Adapting management to changing conditions requires flexibility with responsibility, implementation monitoring of local strategies, and effectiveness monitoring of SMART objectives.

MANAGING LIVESTOCK GRAZING FOR RIPARIAN RECOVERY IN NORTHEASTERN NEVADA. Carol Evans*¹, Gregg E. Simonds², Eric D. Sant², Kurt Fesenmyer³; ¹Retired, Spring Creek, NV, ²Open Range Consulting, Park City, UT, ³Trout Unlimited, Boise, ID

ABSTRACT

How livestock grazing is managed can have profound effects on how streams function over time and how these systems both respond to and even change the environment around them. In the Maggie and Susie Creek basins in Northeastern Nevada, a combination of surface and sub-surface data, photo documentation and use of remote sensing techniques are used to tell a compelling story of how collaborative partnerships and riparian grazing management have caused these stream systems to become increasingly productive and resilient over time.  In the Maggie and Susie Creek watersheds, partners shared a vision to restore native trout and implemented a variety of prescriptive livestock grazing practices on both public and private lands over a period of more than two decades.  Although the grazing strategies differed widely, all included periods of time when riparian plants were either ungrazed or could regrow following grazing impacts.  The ensuing growth and establishment of riparian plant communities set into motion a sequence of events which included colonization and stabilization of floodplains, establishment of beaver, re-hydration of mid-level terraces and development of functional systems which mediated and even benefited from severe droughts and floods in recent years.  Especially in the Maggie Creek Basin, an elevated water table is creating mesic conditions on terraces that have been long disconnected from the stream.  Beaver seem to be an especially important aspect of this story.  Although recovery of these watersheds is still a story in progress, the events that have unfolded over the past 25 years illustrate the power and potential of collaborative watershed management and of managing livestock grazing for riparian recovery. 

REHYDRATING NEVADA: A STORY ABOUT COWS, CREEKS AND COLLABORATION. Jon Griggs*¹, Carol Evans²; ¹Maggie Creek Ranch, Elko, NV, ²Retired, Spring Creek, NV

Producer perspective on benefits of riparian restoration to the ranch.

STICKS AND STONES: LOW-TECH RIPARIAN AND WET MEADOW RESTORATION IN THE GUNNISON BASIN.
. Nathan W. Seward*; Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Gunnison, CO

ABSTRACT

In 2017, the Gunnison Climate Working Group Project Team (GCWG), a diverse public-private partnership, completed its sixth year of riparian and wet meadow restoration in the Upper Gunnison River Basin.  This effort helps the Federal Threatened Gunnison sage-grouse (Centrocercus minimus), other wildlife, and ranchers maintain their livelihoods in the face of a changing climate.  Riparian areas and wet meadows comprise a small proportion of the sagebrush landscape, but provide important Gunnison sage-grouse brood-rearing and summer-fall habitats because of the diversity and abundance of food resources such as succulent forbs and insects.  Most of these mesic communities have been adversely impacted by accelerated erosion and lowered-water tables, and are likely to be further degraded by increased drought and intense precipitation events caused by climate change.  To address these impacts, the GCWG has built over 1,200 rock, earthen, and stick structures following the guidance of restoration expert, Bill Zeedyk, to improve and restore hydrological and ecological function.  The project has gained wide spread support by state, federal, local, private, non-profit, and academic groups.  To date, we’ve enhanced over 1,200 acres of Gunnison sage-grouse brood-rearing habitat along 24 stream miles and significantly restored and developed resiliency in 175 acres of wet meadow.  This project serves as an important demonstration of how simple, yet effective tools can be implemented across large landscapes with multiple land owners/agency jurisdictions to better prepare nature and people for an uncertain future.

THE PLANTS DON’T LIE: VEGETATION MONITORING REVEALS SUCCESS OF RIPARIAN AND WET MEADOW RESTORATION.

. Renee J. Rondeau*¹, Gay Austin², Suzanne Parker³; ¹Colorado State University, Hesperus, CO, ²Bureau of Land Management, Gunnison, CO, ³USFS, Gunnison, CO

Over 1000 wetland restoration structures were built on 25 mesic meadow stream miles in eight watersheds, 2012-2017.  These meadows were identified as important habitat for Gunnison Sage Grouse, yet had been altered by downcutting.  Our primary management objective was to increase wetland acres and wetland species cover. We established 166 randomly chosen permanent vegetation transects, associated with structures, at 13 sites; each site had at least 3 control transects. Transect length was varied to account for variable bank-to-bank width. We used the line-point intercept method, collecting data every 0.5m.  For each point we identified all the species that intercepted a pin flag; we counted ground cover only when there was no vegetation cover.  We re-sampled the transects and repeated photos each year, usually within a few weeks of the original sample date.  We calculated changes in overall wetland species cover (obligate and facultative) by year and across sites, in addition to assessing the overall species composition.  Wetland species cover, four years post treatment, at four sites, increased an average of 160%, ranging 28-245%, compared to a 15% increase at untreated areas.  Sites with the most increase were ephemeral streams with a high sediment load, good snowpack, and light grazing pressure.  Grazing from livestock varied from none to somewhat heavy. The rate of response increased with lower grazing pressure, but we also observed an increase in wetland species cover under higher grazing pressure.  We conclude that our efforts have increased the groundwater level, which had a direct impact on the wetland species.  Overall productivity of the wetland increased, providing Gunnison Sage Grouse, wildlife, and livestock with more “groceries”. This simple and cost-effective restoration effort works well in the sagebrush landscape.  

THE BRIDGE CREEK RESTORATION STORY: BEAVER, BDAS & GRAZING MANAGEMENT.

Bridge Creek, a tributary to the Lower John Day River, flows through the high-desert of central Oregon and serves as an important spawning and rearing stream for Mid-Columbia Steelhead.  Much of Bridge Creek suffers from channel incision and features an overall lack of habitat complexity, hydrologic disconnection from groundwater and its floodplain, and high stream temperatures thought to be detrimental to juvenile steelhead.  However, BLM made dramatic changes to the grazing management in roughly twenty years ago, which facilitated modest recovery of riparian vegetation and supported some beaver activity. However, it was not enough to address the degraded habitat associated with channel incision. Bridge Creek became an Intensively Monitored Watershed in 2007 and restoration treatments were implemented in 2009.  The restoration approach consists of constructing in-channel structures that mimic the form and function of beaver dams (beaver dam analogues - BDAs) in order to expedite the recovery of incised stream reaches while at the same time encouraging establishment of stable beaver complexes. Monitoring results from the Bridge Creek IMW demonstrate the ability of this restoration approach to produce many of the beneficial processes associated with beaver complexes, including increased habitat complexity, groundwater and floodplain connectivity, and moderation of high summer stream temperatures.  In addition, the conditions created by the installation of artificial beaver dam structures increases the likelihood that beavers will establish persistent colonies within treated stream reaches, thereby perpetuating benefits to stream and riparian function and steelhead habitat quality. These instream and riparian improvements have important spill-over benefits to the adjacent upland ecosystems and communities that depend on them.

THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER: QUANTIFYING OUTCOMES OF LOW-TECH RIPARIAN AND WET MEADOW RESTORATION USING REMOTE SENSING

Riparian and wet meadow landscapes make up a small percentage of the overall land area in the Western United States, yet their impacts on wildlife, vegetation, and water resources are profound. When healthy, these areas act as zones of soil water storage allowing for increased plant productivity, groundwater infiltration, and the slow, steady release of surface and sub-surface runoff. When these areas are functioning sub-optimally, the watershed as a whole suffers from increased drought and flood vulnerability, decreased plant productivity, and degraded fish and wildlife habitat. Over the last century unregulated livestock management, drought, non-native invasive weeds, and conifer encroachment have impacted the Intermountain West in ways that we are still recovering from today. Historically, much of the restoration that has taken place in the Intermountain West has largely focused on upland rangeland. It wasn’t until the late 1990s that practitioners began to focus on riparian and wet meadow restoration. While many of these restoration activities have been different in design, the processes they are meant to restore are often the same. Common to all these processes is the dynamic interplay between the hydrology and ecology of the landscape.

In this study we use satellite remote sensing to explore changes in vegetation productivity (NDVI) of three distinct riparian/wet meadow restoration projects. The projects range widely in geographic location (Colorado, Oregon, and Nevada), restoration practice (Zeedyk structures, beaver dam analogs, and grazing management), and time since implementation, but are considered “low-cost” and “low-impact” solutions. We evaluate changes in plant productivity, in addition to changes in time above a riparian productivity threshold. We also explore changes in vegetation sensitivity to precipitation over time since restoration. Restoration practices resulted in increased vegetation productivity of up to 25% and increased persistence of productive vegetation–up to six months in some locations. Mesic restoration practices also led to increased resiliency, buffering vegetation productivity from climatic variability.

NEW TECHNOLOGY AND FRONTIERS: EFFICIENTLY MEASURING CONSERVATION OUTCOMES THROUGH TIME WITH GOOGLE EARTH ENGINE. Brady Allred*¹, Dave Naugle¹, Patrick Donnelly², Jeremy Maestas³, Matthew O. Jones¹, Nicholas L. Silverman¹; ¹University of Montana, Missoula, MT, ²U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Missoula, MT, ³Natural Resources Conservation Service, Portland, OR

Evaluation of conservation outcomes is hard; relevant field data may be lacking, analysis skills may be absent or outdated, or conservation projects may span a geographical gradient too big to handle. Due to these and many other reasons, conservation outcomes are often pushed aside, ignored, or just impractical to do. Earth observation data–particularly satellite remote sensing–provides a platform to assess broad scale conservation outcomes, but users of such data are often faced with the same challenges of data manipulation or analysis. Emerging cloud based geospatial technologies (e.g., Google Earth Engine), however, eliminate many of the barriers in working with and applying these data to conservation assessments. Furthermore, publicly available web application can be built upon these technologies, providing simple and immediate access to targeting and evaluation tools.

The USDA NRCS led Sage Grouse Initiative built an interactive web application to change the paradigm of conservation analysis and evaluation. This online tool allows users to quickly identify and compare areas of concern in order to evaluate potential restoration or threat-prevention opportunities. Built upon Google Earth Engine and the commonly used Google Maps interface, the interactive web application quickly and easily visualizes datasets online; distributes datasets through fast and accessible downloads; and performs on-the-fly custom analyses. The web application allows ranchers, conservationists, and other partners to currently interact with data on encroachment of conifers, resilience and resistance to invasive weeds, conversion risk of native rangeland to cropland, collision risk for sage grouse flying near fences, and changes in mesic habitat over time. Dynamic and interactive applications such as these effectively puts the appropriate data directly into the hands of the people working on the ground, allowing a flexible and landscape-level approach to habitat conservation on western rangelands.

PLANNING, DESIGNING & IMPLEMENTING EFFECTIVE BEAVER-ASSISTED RIPARIAN RESTORATION PROJECTS.