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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Burns, Oregon » Range and Meadow Forage Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #286934
Title: Integrating a rangeland health assessment with successional management: A synergistic approach to EBIPM

Author
item VASQUEZ, EDWARD - Humboldt State University
item Sheley, Roger
item James, Jeremy
item Svejcar, Anthony
item PELLANT, MIKE - Bureau Of Land Management

Submitted to: Rangelands
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/15/2012
Publication Date: 12/1/2012
Citation: Vasquez, E.A., Sheley, R.L., James, J.J., Svejcar, A.J., Pellant, M.L. 2012. Integrating a rangeland health assessment with successional management: A synergistic approach to EBIPM. Rangelands. 34(6):15-18.

Interpretive Summary: Rangeland health assessment is method for determining the status of rangeland ecosystems. Using this program, land managers evaluate a series of 17 attributes including soil and vegetation properties. Once this information is collected it is compared to an ecological site reference area for a rapid assessment of rangeland health regarding the status of ecosystem properties. Using successional management we developed a worksheet to transfer this information to better determine the causes of succession that may be in disrepair. We consider this the first step in implementing an ecologically-based invasive plant management program.

Technical Abstract: Qualitative Rangeland Health Assessments are extremely useful because they provide a relative indication of resource problems on rangelands. Additionally, theSuccessional Management framework identifies three primary causes of plantcommunity change, ecological processes, and factors that modify these processes.Incorporating Successional Management with a Rangeland Health Assessment is useful for detecting areas adversely impacted by multiple stressors and provides usefulinformation to resource managers about point-in-time cumulative impacts. The overall goal of this article is to describe how ecologically-based invasive plant management integrates these two concepts to form a holistic vegetation management framework for managing and/or restoring degraded rangelands.