Status and Trends

Program Overview

The Nation's living resources and the habitats on which they depend are undergoing constant change. Climate change, invasive species, and a plethora of human activities are causing natural resource management and conservation efforts to become increasingly challenging and complex. To help meet this challenge, USGS's Status and Trends of Biological Resources Program supports and provides the collection and analysis of biological data for use by natural resource managers, scientists, and the general public.

Program Relevance

To help meet this challenge, USGS's Status and Trends of Biological Resources Program supports and provides the collection and analysis of biological data and the development of scientifically sound approaches to measure, predict, assess, and report the status and trends of our living resources for use by natural resource managers, scientists, and the general public.

To protect and conserve the living resources entrusted to their care, land and resource managers must first understand the condition, or status, of those resources:

Inventory (what they are),
Distribution (where they are located),
Abundance (how many there are),
Productivity (their capacity to produce),
Health (their well-being, resilience) - and then understand the trends being exhibited by those resources and be able to identify the variables that have changed over time and space.
Credible, long-term monitoring is required to satisfy these information needs. In addition, long-term monitoring can be used for:
- Detecting changes that may signal degradation of or improvement in natural systems
- Identifying new or emerging conditions that signal the need for management action or further investigative research
- Validating research results and models
- Promoting increased public understanding and appreciation of the status and trends of our living resources
- Providing feedback critical to evaluating the effectiveness of specific management actions in adaptive management

Our Mission

Our mission is to:

Measure - the status and trends of our living resources
Assess - the status and trends of our living resources
Predict - the status and trends of our living resources
Report - the status and trends of our living resources

Determining the status (abundance, distribution, productivity, and health) and trends (how these variables change over time) of our living resources is critical for their protection or restoration.

Our ultimate goal is to provide the information and develop the methods that will enable all levels of resource managers and the public to better understand our living resources.

For more information visit the Program's 5-Year Strategic Plan, available in an HTML version or a PDF version of the 2005 printed document.

Information on the the Programs's budget can be found in the Status and Trends Greenbook PDF.

Program Goals

As outlined in the program's five-year strategic plan, the program goals of Status and Trends are to:

Facilitate integrated monitoring from a variety of sources at multiple spatial and temporal scales to describe and track the abundance, distribution, productivity, and health of the Nation's plants, animals, and landscapes,
Develop and evaluate inventory and monitoring methods, protocols, experimental designs, analytic tools, models, and technologies to measure biological status and trends,
Collect, archive, and share critical, high-quality monitoring data in cooperation with partners to determine the status and trends of biological resources, and
Produce and provide analyses and reports that synthesize information on the status and trends of the Nation's flora, fauna, and ecosystems and be responsive to the needs of the scientific community, land and resource managers, policymakers, and the public.

The Nation's living resources and the habitats on which they depend are undergoing constant change. Climate change, invasive species, and a plethora of human activities are causing natural resource management and conservation efforts to become increasingly challenging and complex. To help meet this challenge, USGS's Status and Trends of Biological Resources Program supports and provides the collection and analysis of biological data for use by natural resource managers, scientists, and the general public.		Program Relevance The Nation's living resources and the habitats on which they depend are undergoing constant change. Climate change, invasive species, and a plethora of human activities are causing natural resource management and conservation efforts to become increasingly challenging and complex. To help meet this challenge, USGS's Status and Trends of Biological Resources Program supports and provides the collection and analysis of biological data and the development of scientifically sound approaches to measure, predict, assess, and report the status and trends of our living resources for use by natural resource managers, scientists, and the general public. To protect and conserve the living resources entrusted to their care, land and resource managers must first understand the condition, or status, of those resources: Inventory (what they are), Distribution (where they are located), Abundance (how many there are), Productivity (their capacity to produce), Health (their well-being, resilience) - and then understand the trends being exhibited by those resources and be able to identify the variables that have changed over time and space. Credible, long-term monitoring is required to satisfy these information needs. In addition, long-term monitoring can be used for: Detecting changes that may signal degradation of or improvement in natural systems Identifying new or emerging conditions that signal the need for management action or further investigative research Validating research results and models Promoting increased public understanding and appreciation of the status and trends of our living resources Providing feedback critical to evaluating the effectiveness of specific management actions in adaptive management

Our Mission Our mission is to: Measure - the status and trends of our living resources Assess - the status and trends of our living resources Predict - the status and trends of our living resources Report - the status and trends of our living resources Determining the status (abundance, distribution, productivity, and health) and trends (how these variables change over time) of our living resources is critical for their protection or restoration. Our ultimate goal is to provide the information and develop the methods that will enable all levels of resource managers and the public to better understand our living resources. For more information visit the Program's 5-Year Strategic Plan, available in an HTML version or a PDF version of the 2005 printed document. Information on the the Programs's budget can be found in the Status and Trends Greenbook PDF.

Program Goals As outlined in the program's five-year strategic plan, the program goals of Status and Trends are to: Facilitate integrated monitoring from a variety of sources at multiple spatial and temporal scales to describe and track the abundance, distribution, productivity, and health of the Nation's plants, animals, and landscapes, Develop and evaluate inventory and monitoring methods, protocols, experimental designs, analytic tools, models, and technologies to measure biological status and trends, Collect, archive, and share critical, high-quality monitoring data in cooperation with partners to determine the status and trends of biological resources, and Produce and provide analyses and reports that synthesize information on the status and trends of the Nation's flora, fauna, and ecosystems and be responsive to the needs of the scientific community, land and resource managers, policymakers, and the public.