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Articles 1 - 5 of 5

Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Keeping It Wild: Mapping Wilderness Character In The United States, Steve Carver, James Tricker, Peter Landres Jan 2013

Keeping It Wild: Mapping Wilderness Character In The United States, Steve Carver, James Tricker, Peter Landres

USDA Forest Service / UNL Faculty Publications

A GIS-based approach is developed to identify the state of wilderness character in US wilderness areas using Death Valley National Park (DEVA) as a case study. A set of indicators and measures are identified by DEVA staff and used as the basis for developing a flexible and broadly applicable framework to map wilderness character using data inputs selected by park staff. Spatial data and GIS methods are used to map the condition of four qualities of wilderness character: natural, untrammelled, undeveloped, and solitude or primitive and unconfined recreation. These four qualities are derived from the US 1964 Wilderness Act and …


Extent Of Coterminous Us Rangelands: Quantifying Implications Of Differing Agency Perspectives, Matthew Clark Reeves, John E. Mitchell Nov 2011

Extent Of Coterminous Us Rangelands: Quantifying Implications Of Differing Agency Perspectives, Matthew Clark Reeves, John E. Mitchell

USDA Forest Service / UNL Faculty Publications

Rangeland extent is an important factor for evaluating critical indicators of rangeland sustainability. Rangeland areal extent was determined for the coterminous United States in a geospatial framework by evaluating spatially explicit data from the Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools (LANDFIRE) project describing historic and current vegetative composition, average height, and average cover through the viewpoints of the Natural Resources Inventory (NRI) administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program administered by the US Forest Service. Three types of rangelands were differentiated using the NRI definition encompassing rangelands, afforested rangelands, and transitory …


Cottonwood Riparian Site Selection On The Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, Julie A. Thorstenson, Diane Rickerl, Janet H. Gritzner Apr 2011

Cottonwood Riparian Site Selection On The Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, Julie A. Thorstenson, Diane Rickerl, Janet H. Gritzner

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

The construction of the Oahe Dam on the Missouri River eliminated thousands of acres ofriparian and floodplain lands on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. Restoration is needed to replace wildlife habitat. This study focused on site selection for native cottonwood (Populus deltoides Bartr. Ex Marsh. ssp. Monilifers (Ait.) Eckenwalde) restoration to help mitigate this loss. Geographic information systems technologies were used to develop a suitability model for cottonwood restoration. Tribal lands were extracted from a digital dataset oflandownership. Those touched by or included in a 46 m border of the Moreau River were candidate sites. Of …


Wildland–Urban Interface Maps Vary With Purpose And Context, Susan I. Stewart, Bo Wilmer, Roger B. Hammer, Gregory H. Aplet, Todd J. Hawbaker, Carol Miller, Volker C. Radeloff Jan 2009

Wildland–Urban Interface Maps Vary With Purpose And Context, Susan I. Stewart, Bo Wilmer, Roger B. Hammer, Gregory H. Aplet, Todd J. Hawbaker, Carol Miller, Volker C. Radeloff

USDA Forest Service / UNL Faculty Publications

Maps of the wildland– urban interface (WUI) are both policy tools and powerful visual images. Although the growing number of WUI maps serve similar purposes, this article indicates that WUI maps derived from the same data sets can differ in important ways related to their original intended application. We discuss the use of ancillary data in modifying census data to improve WUI maps and offer a cautionary note about this practice. A comparison of two WUI mapping approaches suggests that no single map is “best” because users’ needs vary. The analysts who create maps are responsible for ensuring that users …


Tool Time: Melding Watershed And Site Goals On Private Lands, Gary Bentrup, Michele M. Schoeneberger, Mike Dosskey, Gary Wells, Todd Kellerman Jun 2005

Tool Time: Melding Watershed And Site Goals On Private Lands, Gary Bentrup, Michele M. Schoeneberger, Mike Dosskey, Gary Wells, Todd Kellerman

USDA Forest Service / UNL Faculty Publications

Creating effective agroforestry systems with broad public support requires simultaneously addressing landowner and societal goals while paying respect to ecological processes that cross spatial and political boundaries. To meet this challenge, a variety of planning and design tools are needed that are straight-forward and flexible enough to accommodate the range of issues and the many individual decision-making processes involved. In this paper, we offer some principles that should be considered when developing planning and design tools for agroforestry. To illustrate how these principles might be used, we will present a few tools from the Comprehensive Conservation Buffer Planning project at …