USGS Firelight - Vol. 1 | Issue 2
Invasive Annual Grass (IAG) Spatial Dataset Compilation and Synthesis
USGS is working closely with partners in the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and the Intermountain West Joint Venture (IMJV) to collect and summarize spatial datasets that describe measurable aspects of invasive annual grasses (e.g., biomass or presence) across the western United Stated and beyond. The products developed through this project provide guidance to practitioners, biologists, and natural resource managers tasked with combating the spread of invasive annual grasses.
Monitoring for adaptive management of burned sagebrush-steppe rangelands: addressing variability and uncertainty on the 2015 Soda Megafire
• Use of adaptive management supported by robust monitoring is vital to solving severe rangeland problems, such as the exotic annual grass invasion and fire cycle in sagebrush-steppe rangelands.• Uncertainty in post-fire plant-community composition and plant response to treatments poses a challenge to land management and research but can be addressed with a high density of observations over short
New USGS EROS Maps Reveal Species-by-species Prevalence of Exotic Grasses in the Western U.S.
Research teams at the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center have released a satellite-derived dataset that maps the recent history of the fire-fueling invasive annual grasses spreading through the Western U.S. in greater detail than ever before.
Combined wildfire dataset for the United States and certain territories, 1870-2015
Ecological Drought Forecast Tool for Drylands
New Tool Aids in Land Treatment Planning
Weather impacts the effectiveness of land treatments. This is especially true in drylands of the Western U.S. where plant survival is heavily influenced by the combination of temperature and soil moisture.
Large-scale wildfire reduces population growth in a peripheral population of sage-grouse
Drastic increases in wildfire size and frequency threaten western North American sagebrush (Artemisia L. spp.) ecosystems. At relatively large spatial scales, wildfire facilitates type conversion of sagebrush-dominated plant communities to monocultures of invasive annual grasses (e.g., Bromus tectorum L.). Annual grasses provide fine fuels that promote fire spread, contributing to a positive grass
The Wildfire Trends Tool: A data visualization and analysis tool to meet land management needs and facilitate scientific inquiry
Fighting wildfires and reducing their negative effects on natural resources costs billions of dollars annually in the U.S. We will develop the Wildfire Trends Tool (WTT), a data visualization and analysis tool that will calculate and display wildfire trends and patterns for the western U.S. based on user-defined regions of interest, time periods, and ecosystem types. The WTT will be publicly avail