Skip to main content
  1. ScienceBase Catalog
  2. LC MAP - Landscape Conservation Management and Analysis Portal
  3. Desert Landscape Conservation Cooperative
  4. Projects
  5. Grasslands Conservation Geospatial Data Compilation and Synthesis
  6. Grasslands Inventory
  7. Evaluating the Effects of Grazing Land Conservation Practices on Southwestern Watersheds

Evaluating the Effects of Grazing Land Conservation Practices on Southwestern Watersheds

Dates

Start Date
2008
End Date
2013

Summary

Conservation of soil and water is the keystone to sustainable livestock grazing and maintenance of native species on Southwestern grazing lands. The negative impacts of erosion on vegetation productivity can have significant economic impacts to a ranch operation and sedimentation is the leading water quality problem in the western United States impacting reservoirs and aquatic environments. Recurring drought conditions can override the success of conservation practices in the arid and semiarid Southwest. The severity and persistence of these drought-related impacts to watershed health can vary among conservation practices. Therefore, government assistance programs intended to support soil and water conservation practices need to assess [...]

Contacts

Lead Organization :
University of Arizona (UA) School of Natural Resources and the Environment (SNRE)

Attached Files

Purpose

The long-term goal of the project is to develop tools to estimate the combined effect of grazing land conservation practices and drought on watershed health and to develop tools for watershed health assessment. The first objective is to assemble and analyze the time series of plot-based measures of vegetation recovery from drought for single and combined conservation practices. Work in the first objective will address the following hypotheses: Recovery following drought does not differ between seasonal rotation and yearlong grazing practices, among combinations of grazing management and fire practices, and among grazing management and brush control practices. The second objective is to improve the capabilities of the R.AGWA erosion-sediment yield model to compute sediment budgets for a watershed and provide information on the effects of grazing land conservation practices on those sediment budgets. The third objective is to use simulations of parameterized watershed-scale models to estimate optimal combinations and spatial arrangements of conservation practices to maintain and improve watershed health. Work in the third objective will address the hypothesis that the combination and spatial arrangement of grazing lands conservation practices will affect response (magnitude and rate of recovery) to drought. The fourth objective is to describe the current socio-economic drivers influencing the adoption and maintenance of conservation practices in response to drought, and evaluate the utility of simulation models to influence future adoption and maintenance of conservation practices. Work in this fourth objective will address the hypothesis that drought modifies livestock growers decisions, potentially leading to negative consequences.

Map

Map Preview

Spatial Services

ScienceBase WMS

Communities

  • Desert Landscape Conservation Cooperative
  • LC MAP - Landscape Conservation Management and Analysis Portal

Tags

Provenance

Data source
Input directly

Additional Information

Alternate Titles

Item Actions

View Item as ...

JSON ATOM ISO XML

Save Item as ...

JSON FGDC MODS XML ISO XML

View Item...

Metrics