Charges, activities, and contact information for the Ecological Sites Focus Team.
Overview
Ecological Sites are conceptual divisions of the landscape that are used to support management decision-making and aid in designing and interpreting research. Ecological sites are based on soil survey maps.
The information attached to these map units is documented in Ecological Site Descriptions (ESDs). ESDs are the basis for individual field, farm, and watershed conservation planning and larger scale modeling projects in NRCS such as the Conservation Effects Assessment Project, National Resource Inventory, and Soil Health Assessment.
EDIT
Ecological Site Descriptions contained in the Ecosystem Dynamics Interpretive Tool (EDIT) provide the basic information to support conservation planning, program implementation and policy development. This online database can be searched by location, land uses, ecosystem services or common behaviors. Visit https://edit.jornada.nmsu.edu for more information.
Charges
- Collaborate to advance Ecological Sites
- Provide leadership and guidance for the integration of Ecological Site information into NRCS programs and policies
- Identify emerging opportunities for Ecological Site applications with federal and state partners
- Recommend new Ecological Site products to support conservation planning, implementation and assessment
- Develop strategic outreach to increase the utility and impact of Ecological Site information and products
Progress
2022
- Story Map of the Ecological Sites of Glacier National Park
- Society of Range Management Ignite Session “Ecological Sites: Emerging Research and Applications” (from the Jornada YouTube channel)
- A National Approach to Identify Soil Groups and Ecological Sites
- Digital Soil Mapping Driven by Ecological Site Concepts
- SiteKey Tool: connecting ecological sites and monitoring data with a quantitative keying approach
- Developing quantitative ecological state keys to assess structural and functional ecosystem changes using standard monitoring datasets
- Drafting of NESH Part 632
- A transportable framework for developing data-driven STMs for ESG
- Incorporating Process-Based Erosion Model Erosion and Water Budget Risk Statistics into STMs
- Simulations based on STM models to predict future land condition
- ESDs, STMs for use in Conservation Planning
2015-2021
Plans
FY 2021/2022
- Complete Provisional Ecological Site Initiative
- Establish autolinks between NRCS ES, Soils, and Plants databases
- Develop protocols for ES development on intensively managed soil map units
- Apply advanced analytical techniques to information in ES database
- Develop web services to support NRCS and other access to ES information
Partners
Joint policy, in the form of Memorandum of Understanding and common Handbook guidance, among the BLM, NRCS, and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) efficiently pools the agencies’ technical resources for the development and use of ecological sites to describe site characteristics, plant communities, and use interpretations for grazing land and forestland. Other federal agencies such as USGS, NPS and EPA are active collaborators.