The Department of the Army started landscape-level vegetation monitoring at major installations in the late 1980s through the Land Condition Trend Analysis Program. �A change in program proponency shifted emphasis away from permanent plots. �At Camp Williams, 97 plots representing 24,000 acres were monitored annually through 2006 when funding was reprioritized. �The same locations were resurveyed using Rangeland Health Assessment methodology in 2011 and 2014 as an input into adaptive natural resource management. �A key measurement of both methods is a 100-meter point-line intercept cover count. �Rangeland Health Assessment with 20 years of vegetation cover data provides useful information to assess the training landscape and vegetation communities that is incorporated into the Integrated Natural Resource Management Plan (INRMP). �The 2014 assessment showed landscape changes in Biotic Integrity, including a shift in indicators for functional groups, increase in invasive plants and bare ground, and evidence of a loss of soil surface-water resistence. �While wildfire is a leading suspect for causes, the increase in cheatgrass has implications for wildfire hazard. �The revised INRMP focuses on reversing annual grass invasion directly through control and indirectly through protecting plant communities from conversion by fire. Within juniper stands, analysis of cover data showed a threshold in juniper canopy cover at 35-40% where shrub and native herbaceous plants are eliminated and annual grass remains. �Thinning of juniper to 20-30% leads to significant understory improvement and training site desirability. �Researchers at Utah State University are analyzing climate change and implications with the data as well.
Oral presentation and poster titles, abstracts, and authors from the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meetings and Tradeshows, from 2013 forward.