Ecological site descriptions (ESDs) are reports that describe an Ecological Site's soils and potential plant communities. These ESDs are used by federal land management agencies to govern stocking rates, prescriptions in site restoration, and managing wildlife habitat. A core part of ESDs are the state-and-transition model (STM). STMs describe how vegetation will respond to management and natural processes. What limits the efficacy of these models is not knowing the current vegetation or state on described ecological sites. Open Range Consulting (ORC) has developed technology capable of assessing functional ground cover conditions that can be used to evaluate the state of ecological sites across large geographic areas at 1 meter resolution. This technology offers the potential to map the current state of ecological sites. This can be done over broad regions quickly and inexpensively. Having high resolution and spatially explicit maps of the states of ecological sites on a regional scale enriches the value of ESDs. It provides planners with a decision support tool to make precise and impactful plans at appropriate scales and then have a means to accurately assess the results.
Oral presentation and poster titles, abstracts, and authors from the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meetings and Tradeshows, from 2013 forward.