Project Number: 6235-11210-006-69
Project Type: Reimbursable

Start Date: May 01, 2006
End Date: Sep 30, 2010

Objective:
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages 13.5 million acres of public land in New Mexico. The mission of the BLM is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the resources and lands entrusted to it for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations through balanced management within the framework of the laws. To meet the goals of the BLM mission, the agency must have reliable sources of sound science concerning rangeland resources within its jurisdiction in support of the Bureau's overall vegetation management program, and rangeland health assessment and evaluations.

Approach:
1) Provide progress update reports on the Ecological Site Description (ESD) at ESD core group meetings. 2) Provide synthesis paper updates about ESD's and state-transition models which includes a critical evaluation of the procedures for creating models that can be applied and are consistent with ecological theory. 3) Review of the NRCS NASIS data and soil survey manuals for MLRA to search for commonalities and distinguishing characteristics of soils associated with individual ecological sites. 4) Complete ESD write-ups and State-and-Transition Models development. 5) Participate in a Bureau Peer Review of the ESD's for each MLRA.