Location: Range Management Research
2024 Annual Report
Objectives
Objective 1: Enable climate-smart decision-making by developing science-based, region-specific information, tools and technologies for agricultural and natural resource managers, and provide assistance where possible to enhance adoption and implementation of the same. The work will be conducted as the Southwest USDA Climate Change Hub and will be coordinated with NRCS, FS, and other USDA and non-USDA organizations in accordance with guidance found in the USDA Climate Change Hubs Charter, and Terms of Reference.
Objective 2: Expand and enhance each Hub’s research and communication capacity and ensure integration of ARS research outcomes from across the region into Hub outreach assets.
Objective #3: Provide capacity to expand and enhance the hub’s climate-science, social-science, and economic-science resources and tools via enhanced collaboration with ARS research teams and other research partners to ensure impactful integration of ARS research outcomes from across the region into Hub outreach assets.
Approach
The climate hubs relate directly to the Sustainable Agricultural Systems Research National Program (NP216) Action Plan (2018-2022), Component 3. Achieving Agroecosystem Potential and these problem statements: Problem Statement 3a. Sustaining Intensified Production; Problem Statement 3b. Enhancing ecosystem services; and Problem Statement 3c. Enabling decision support for sustainability.
Progress Report
Integrate and Share Science Advances: Science synthesis is one of the three functional areas of all Climate Hubs, and it is critical that Hubs share regional scientific advances related to weather, climate, agriculture, and forestry. Members of the Southwest Climate Hub team led and contributed to the Southwest Chapter (Chapter 28) of the fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5), earning the Secretary’s Achievement Award in 2024. In fiscal year (FY) 2024, ARS researchers in Las Cruces, New Mexico, presented the assessment at the American Geophysical Union meeting, hosted the regional webinar to share findings, and convened a regional climate summit with Southwest Chapter authors on the campus of a tribal serving college, reaching more than 400 people. The Southwest Climate Hub researchers also shared science advances at the Agricultural Outlook Forum and in the Research, Education, and Economics (REE) revolutionary research webinar in October 2023.
Maintain and share decision-support tools: Weather and climate information and resources are readily accessible via many sources, but resource managers and decision-makers often struggle to find the right information at the right location to address their current challenge or decision. To address this challenge, researchers have developed, refined, and shared eight decision support tools and libraries over the past decade. Research and refinement and extension continue as Southwest Climate Hub staff work with partners to support climate-informed decisions. In FY 2024, researchers had major advances in three of the eight decision-support platforms: the Water Adaptation Techniques Atlas, the Forest Resource Index for Decisions in Adaptation, and the Climate Quick Reference Guides. Projects on Grass-Cast and the AgRisk Viewer also continued. Researchers initiated new decision support projects with the Farm Service Agency.
Supporting over-burdened communities in the Southwest: Researchers established cooperative agreements with three tribal serving colleges to advance learning and implementation of indigenous agriculture, beekeeping, and drought in the region. Researchers are investigating cultural resources and climate change, partnering with the Native Climate project supported by the National Institutes for Food and Agriculture.
Sustainable Southwest Beef Project: Southwestern ranchers face a future climate with warmer temperatures, changed precipitation patterns, and in some areas, declining rangeland forage production. Frequent droughts and spatially variable precipitation are also typical of the region. Virtual fencing and remotely monitoring water troughs, rain gauges, and cattle locations, can help producers adapt by providing more flexibility in grazing management and vital information about remote pastures. However, there is limited information in circulation about these technologies. A team of the Sustainable Southwest Beef Project, led by the Southwest Climate Hub, have developed precision ranching resources, hosted on-ranch demonstrations and updated tools for the beef industry, a library of more than 580 livestock related decision support tools. Partners include USDA Southern Plains Hub, New Mexico State University and Utah State University. Efforts to provide climate information on Southwest grazing allotments are underway.
Water Scarcity Solutions: In 2022, the Southwest Climate Hub launched the Water Adaptation Techniques Atlas (WATA) which shares information about responses to southwestern water scarcity. WATA now contains 242 examples of water adaptation (as of May 31, 2024). A team of four people continues to populate WATA with water scarcity solutions which will be the foundation for an assessment of the tradeoffs and efficacy of specific solutions in specific locations. WATA will support future research on solutions, trade-offs and collaboration on water and community resilience.
Adaptation Workshops: There is abundant science related to climate adaptation in forests, rangelands and grasslands, but interpreting and applying this science can be challenging for practitioners who often have conflicting priorities and little time to decide what has relevance for their location. Therefore, the Southwest Climate Hub organized and hosted four adaptation workshops with National Forests where resource specialists, managers, and researchers could work together using the Adaptation Workbook to determine which climate impacts are of greatest concern to them and identify management opportunities for adapting to change.
Building Climate Capacity in Hawaii: The Southwest Climate Hub region includes Hawaii and the United States Affiliated Pacific Islands. Through partnership with the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the U.S. Forest Service, we hired a coordinator located in Hawaii. This position, affiliated with Cooperative Extension, has broadened our science synthesis, decision-support, and convening activities in the region. Research and modelling focused on management actions to limit wildfire in Hawaii is ongoing.
Drought Learning Network: The Southwest Drought Learning Network was formed in response to the exceptional drought of 2018, which is the highest classification of drought in the United States Drought Monitor. The network continues to grow, with more than 120 participants. During FY 2024, network partners hosted drought briefings, published case studies, and planned an annual meeting focused on building peer-to-peer connections with resource managers. The network is collectively managed by the Southwest Climate Hub, the National Integrated Drought Information System, and the National Drought Mitigation Center.
Forest Resources Inventory: In FY 2022, the Southwest Climate Hub and the Southwest and South Central Climate Adaptation Science Centers launched a collaborative program to build a forest management toolshed to support climate change adaptation decision-making. The Forest Resource Index for Decisions in Adaptation was shared widely in FY 2024.
Climate Mitigation with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS): Researchers have worked with NRCS in Utah and Nevada to discuss climate adaptation and mitigation needs. In FY 2024, we co-identified avoided green-house gas emissions from cattle, brush management, and prescribed fire as areas of needed synthesis leading towards management options in the Southwest.
Accomplishments
1. A multi-pronged strategy for connecting diverse users to climate solutions. Farmers, ranchers, foresters, and communities in the Southwest are coping with increased climate risk, intensifying drought, severe wildfires and expanding extreme weather events. There is a growing demand for synthesized climate risk and adaptation knowledge in this diverse region, but the ability to connect regional users to information is limited by staff time and traditional outreach approaches. ARS scientists in Las Cruces, New Mexico, developed a strategy to produce, synthesize and share climate research and adaptation solutions via diverse pathways, including 1) hosting adaptation planning and practices courses and climate conversations with USDA staff 2) leading and participating in public webinars to share climate science (e.g. 5th National Climate Assessment webinar and the Research, Education, and Economics revolutionary science webinar) 3) hosting information tables at many events, including the national Agriculture Outlook Forum, 4) collaborating with other climate service organizations to host the Southwest Drought Learning Network, the Southwest Adaptation Forum, and the Four Corners Climate Summit, and 5) leading national assessments, visioning efforts, scientific symposia, podcasts, as well as peer-reviewed journal articles. The multi-pronged strategy has allowed a limited staff to reach an estimated 6,200 users in multiple agricultural sectors and roles with high quality, locally-relevant climate resilience information.
2. Building climate literacy within and outside USDA. Resource managers within the USDA are challenged to incorporate the current and future impacts of climate change into their management practices and plans. However, the information needed to support climate-informed decision-making is often difficult to find and conceptualize in a timely way for a local analysis. In response, ARS researchers in Las Cruces, New Mexico, hosted climate adaptation planning and practices courses for forest managers in four national forests in fiscal year 2024, along with a workshop focused on pinyon juniper woodlands across the Colorado Plateau. We supported resource managers within the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) by hosting climate conversations in three states. Climate Quick Reference Guides were developed for nearly every county in the nation, and are now served within Conservation Desktop, the planning software used by NRCS field staff and served to all other USDA agency staff and the public via farmers.gov.
3. Climate adaptation through precision ranching and heritage breeds. Southwestern ranchers face a future climate with warmer temperatures, changed precipitation patterns, and in some areas, declining rangeland forage production. Frequent droughts and spatially variable precipitation are also typical of the region. Virtual fencing and remotely monitoring water troughs, rain gauges, and cattle locations can help producers adapt by providing more flexibility in grazing management and vital information about remote pastures. However, there is limited information in circulation about these technologies. A team of the Sustainable Southwest Beef Project, led by the ARS researchers at Las Cruces, New Mexico and the Southwest Climate Hub, have developed resources to share information from the project’s research into Precision Ranching Technologies and Criollo cattle. The team also organized on-ranch demonstrations, developed supply chain options creative media, and updated Tools for the Beef Industry, a library of more than 580 livestock related decision support tools.
4. Decision-support delivery to internal and external advisors builds resilience to climate risks. Weather-related challenges in U.S. southwestern communities and ecosystems include crop loss, extreme drought, variability in rangeland production, and wildfire. ARS researchers in Las Cruces, New Mexico, updated, maintained and shared a cadre of decision-support tools including the AgRisk Viewer (a tool sharing indemnity payments by crop from the national to county level on a monthly time-step), the Dust Mitigation Handbook, the Climate Quick Reference Guides, Tools for the Beef Industry, and the AfterFire toolkit. We also shared the Grass-Cast forage production forecasting tool via creative means such as short videos. We continue research with partners to understand biophysical relationships underpinning Grass-Cast. Given our continued work in the data-driven decision-support arena, in 2024 the Southwest Climate Hub was invited to provide more than 10 presentations.
5. Sharing water scarcity solutions to build resilience to future drought. For decades, scientists, Extension, Tribes, government agencies, and individuals have sought solutions to water scarcity in the southwest. Yet there is no central location for archiving these efforts and making the information more accessible. Therefore, the Southwest Climate Hub in Las Cruces, New Mexico, has been developing a Water Adaptation Techniques Atlas (WATA) which shares information about responses to southwestern water scarcity. WATA now contains 242 examples of water adaptation. It was presented at five conferences and shared in an ARS blog reaching 7.29 million people. A team of experts continue to populate WATA with water scarcity solutions which will be the foundation for an assessment of the tradeoffs and efficacy of specific solutions in specific locations.
6. Addressing forest manager needs in the Southwest. In 2022, ARS researchers at the Southwest Climate Hub and the Southwest and South Central Climate Adaptation Science Centers launched a collaborative program to build a forest management toolshed to support climate change adaptation decision-making. The Forest Resource Index for Decisions in Adaptation (FRIDA) was completed in November 2023 and shared widely in 2024. FRIDA is a decision-support framework developed to address a clear resource manager need. While there is information available to support climate-informed decisions, it is often difficult to find and use, especially for resource managers with limited time. FRIDA is a searchable library of forest resources, focused on New Mexico and Arizona, but including other regions as well. FRIDA contains more than 550 resources organized by topic, region, platform and vegetation type. In 2024, FRIDA was shared widely with resource managers in New Mexico and Arizona. FRIDA has been accessed nearly 400 times since release in November 2023.
7. Expanding collaboration with indigenous partners in the Southwest. The USDA Climate Hub in Las Cruces, New Mexico continued an agreement with the Institute of American Indian Arts to expand beekeeping webinars that blend science training and traditional knowledge. Our agreement with Dine College supports tribal drought conferences such as the Navajo Nation Climate Adaptation workshop in March 2024. We also co-hosted the Southwest Adaptation Forum along-side Ecotruths for Indigenous Youth and the University of Arizona Indigenous Resilience Center. In January 2024, our team shared climate adaptation information at the Southwest Indian Agriculture Association annual meeting and the New Mexico Tribal Forest and Fire Summit via presentations and information booths. Our coordinator in Hawaii co-hosted an agroforestry community workday at Pu’ulani including non-indigenous, Native Hawaiian, and Indigenous Pacific Island individuals using indigenous stewardship practices and integrated design. We featured a Hopi Farmer speaking about indigenous agriculture and climate resilience here. The Four Corners Climate Summit is an event co-hosted by the Southwest Climate Hub at a tribal serving College (Fort Lewis College) to ensure indigenous students learn about the most recent National Climate Assessment. This event has 400 registered participants. We are also partnering with the National Drought Mitigation Center on a drought project with the six Northern Pueblos in New Mexico. Finally, we are working with the Native Climate project funded via a Climate Hub – Extension Partnership grant designed to make climate data more accessible to Tribes, build capacity through Native Climate Fellows, and support Native Climate student interns to report on climate impacts and tribal resilience on their reservations.
Review Publications
Bestelmeyer, B.T., McCord, S.E., Browning, D.M., Burkett, L.M., Elias, E.H., Estell, R.E., Herrick, J.E., James, D.K., Spiegal, S.A., Utsumi, S.A., Webb, N.P., Williamson, J.C. 2024. Fulfilling the promise of digital tools to build rangeland resilience. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 22(5). Article e2736. https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.2736.
Schantz, M.C., Hardegree, S.P., Sheley, R.L., Abatzoglou, J., Hegewisch, K., Elias, E.H., James, J., Moffet, C. 2024. Forecasts for rangeland management applications in the western United States. Rangeland Ecology and Management. 94:207-214. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2024.03.008.
Silber-Coats, N., Elias, E.H., Steele, C., Fernald, K., Gagliardi, M., Hrozencik, A., Levers, L.R., Ostoja, S.M., Parker, L., Williamson, J.C., Yao, Y. 2024. The water adaptation techniques atlas: A new geospatial library of solutions to water scarcity in the U.S. Southwest. PLOS Water. 3(6). Article e0000246. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000246.
Wilmer, H.N., Ferguson, D.B., Dinan, M., Thacker, E., Adler, P.B., Bills Walsh, K., Bradford, J.B., Brunson, M., Derner, J.D., Elias, E.H., Felton, A., Gray, C.A., Greene, C., McClaran, M., Shriver, R.K., Stevenson, M., Suding, K.N. 2024. Resilience is not enough: Toward a more meaningful rangeland adaptation science. Rangeland Ecology and Management. 95:56-67. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2024.04.003.