Get reliable science

The looming possibility of a Greater Sage-Grouse listing under the Endangered Species Act has created a need to assess its habitat, sagebrush, range-wide at a variety of scales. These scales range from statewide to individual sagebrush shrubs. Current tools include remote sensing products that can assess conditions at the statewide scale, and traditional rangeland assessment methods that measure very detailed information but at a limited spatial scale. While these products can be appropriately and effectively used at the scale they are designed for, they lack the ability to evaluate habitat conditions at the scale most relevant to the life cycle of the Sage-Grouse. Continuous cover mapping of important functional groups of landcover is an alternative to the tools currently employed. The ground information for this tool is collected at the detailed plot level and then leveraged across the landscape using multiple scales of remotely sensed images.