Project Number: 5342-12660-004-00
Project Type: Appropriated

Start Date: Feb 27, 2007
End Date: Feb 26, 2012

Objective:
Objective 1. Provide data bases, knowledge, and information of rangeland erosion at a range of spatial scales for the development, validation, and implementation of erosion decision tools. Objective 2. Develop decision tools including a rangeland specific hydrology and erosion model for the planning and evaluation of sustainable rangeland management.

Approach:
This project addresses the lack of rangeland specific decision tools to quantify the climatic and management effects on the sustainability of rangelands as affected by runoff and erosion. In particular, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and other action agencies have requested a hydrologic and erosion model to contribute to the ecological site description and National Resource Inventory data bases, to assess the efficacy of conservation practices for the Conservation Security Program, and to provide estimates of runoff and erosion for rangeland monitoring and ranch planning. To address this, two objectives were identified: Objective 1. Provide data bases, knowledge, and information on rangeland erosion at a range of spatial scales for the development, validation, and implementation of erosion decision tools and Objective 2. Develop decision tools including a rangeland specific hydrology and erosion model for the planning and evaluation of sustainable rangeland management. Objective 1 consists of three elements on Erosion Processes, one on Conservation Structures, and one on Remote Sensing. The Erosion Processes elements addresses the quantification of the rates and amounts of erosion, sources and sinks of sediment, and biotic and aboitic influences on sediment yield at scales ranging from plot to small watershed. The resulting data and knowledge will be used to validate hydrologic and erosion relationships and for parameter estimation equations for the erosion model. The Conservation Structures element addresses delivering design criteria for local ranchers and provide the erosion model with data on conservation practices. The Remote Sensing element addresses providing parameter estimation for large scale applications of the erosion model and rangeland health assessments. Objective 2 consists of one element on an Erosion Model and one element on an Economic Decision Support System (EDSS). The Erosion Model will be developed for a wide range of erosion related applications, ranging from parameterizing the NRCS ecological site descriptions to ranch planning. The EDSS will be used to calculate the cost benefit ratios of upland conservation management. Formerly 5342-66000-004-00D & 5342-12660-003-00D (4/07).