Land Treatment Exploration Tool

Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details

Each year, public land managers make decisions regarding restoration and rehabilitation actions that influence landscapes and ecosystems. Many of these decisions involve soil and vegetation manipulations, often known as land treatments. Land treatments include activities such as removal or alteration of plant biomass, seeding burned areas, and herbicide applications. These treatments were historically planned on a case by case basis with decisions about implementation approaches, methods, and operations derived from personal experience of past successes or failures.

Modern adaptive management strategies strive to capture this local knowledge through time, both locally and regionally. In 2017, the U.S. Geological Survey partnered with the Bureau of Land Management to create the Land Treatment Exploration Tool to facilitate adaptive management of land treatments. The Exploration Tool taps into a wealth of information about past treatments in the Land Treatment Digital Library (LTDL, https://ltdl.wr.usgs.gov/), a catalog of information about all known treatments on public lands administered by the BLM in the Western United States.

The Exploration Tool is designed for resource managers to use when planning land treatments. The tool provides useful summaries of environmental characteristics of planned treatment areas and facilitates adaptive management practices by comparing those characteristics to other similar treatments within a specified distance or area of interest.

If you are interested in learning more about the Exploration Tool or need immediate assistance please email LTDL_Project@usgs.gov.

User's Guide

Start Planning

Land Treatment Digital Library Data Disclaimer:  These data are preliminary or provisional and are subject to revision. They are being provided to meet the need for timely best science. The data have not received final approval by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and are provided on the condition that neither the USGS nor the U.S. Government shall be held liable for any damages resulting from the authorized or unauthorized use of the data.

Due to the data collection process, data within the LTDL do not contain the most recent  Bureau of Land Management (BLM) treatments. We continue to work with the BLM to update and refine the LTDL with new treatment information whenever possible. Within the LTDL, treatments that have occurred within the last 5 years may be complete, partially complete, or not entered. Please consult with your local BLM office regarding treatments that have occurred within the last 10 years for more information.