RESEARCH ON SUSTAINABLE RANGELAND MANAGEMENT

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RESEARCH ON SUSTAINABLE RANGELAND MANAGEMENT
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Research Needs in the 21st Century

• Does the indicator assess the criterion?
• At what scales are the indicator valid?
• How do we come up with thresholds?
• How to we integrate the criteria?

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• Maintenance and Enhancement of Multiple Economic
  and Social Benefits to Current and Future
  Generations
• Community-level indicators that might be relevant
  to sustainability
• Value produced by agriculture and recreation as
  percent of
• total economy.
• Land tenure, land use, ownership patterns by size
  class
• Population pyramid and population change

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Scale in Ecological Observations
Grain Resolving power of data. Grain
determines smallest entities that can be found in
data. Extent highest level that can be
accessed. If size of entity is larger than data
(spatial, temporal), then associated attributes
cannot be observed.
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• FREQUENCY OF BEHAVIOR
• - Systems have particular characteristic
  frequencies.
• - Monitoring must accommodate frequency of a
  systems scale.

The larger the system, the longer the cycle time
of unperturbed behavior. From top to bottom of a
hierarchy, there is a continuum of natural
frequencies.
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Research on Benefits to Management in the Field
An issue of scale and interactions among
indicators

• Fire
• Invasive species
• Drought
• Exurban development

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Thresholds

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Thresholds related to Sustainability

• Biodiversity Ecosystem resilience
• Biodiversity Productive capacity
• Fragmentation Biodiversity
• Invasive species Biodiversity
• Productive capacity
• Soil cover Erosion

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Evaluating Rangeland Sustainability SRM Task
Group on Unity and Concepts in Terms Rangelands
17(3)85-92 1995
Focused on the site level i.e. rangeland
condition and trend. Soil is the basic
resource. Sought unity in terminology and
methodology. Site conservation
thresholds Site Conservation rating
sustainable and unsustainable
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Sustainability as Expressed by Forms of Capital

• Capital has investment value
• Sustainability attained when combination of
• investments provide for future needs of society.

Human capital Resources of individuals Social
capital Resources of communities Natural
capital Resources from nature. Financial
capital Resources measured in dollars.
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SRR Validates/develops indicators and measurement
protocols.
NRI / FIA / etc. Rangeland monitoring systems
incorporate new protocols.
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no
yes
NATL ASSESSMENTS Monitors trends of SRR
indicators.
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Are the indicators valid and useful?