Get reliable rangeland science

State-and-transition models (STMs) are ideally suited to provide management and restoration guidance as well as site-specific benchmarks for land degradation monitoring and measurement, monitoring, reporting, and verification for ecosystem service markets. STMs, however, have been difficult to produce with sufficient consistency, utility, and accessibility to serve these functions. To address these problems, we developed the State Transition Classifier and State Transition Atlas tools that guide users through the production of STMs featuring 1) guidance for defining land units based on the maximum spatial extent of an STM, 2) menus for attributing each STM component (i.e. states and elements of transition narratives) with standard, logic-based classes, 3) guidance for structuring STM narrative portions in an efficient and consistent way, 4) guidance for inclusion and interpretation of quantitative indicators and benchmarks, and 5) an online storage and display solution (the Atlas). These tools support collaborative development of STMs at a variety of scales and can be adapted to different classification systems used on rangelands globally. The Classifier and Atlas can facilitate a broad understanding of rangeland ecosystem dynamics by developers, users, and the public at large.