(big) data to evaluate land management and sustainability in large landscape.
USDA-ARS Range Management Research Unit, Jornada Experimental Range in Las Cruces, NM, developed an innovative approach to using datasets on vegetation, climate, and land use to evaluate the long-term effects of agricultural practices used in extensive rangelands managed by a collaborative conservation group.
Collaborative conservation groups are organized groups of farmers working together to achieve common agricultural and marketing goals. The conservation strategies used by these groups are presumed to support land health for future generations of ranching communities. “Efforts to measure the efficacy of these strategies at a broad-scale were limited by lack of high-quality scientific data,” said Brandon Bestelmeyer, Research Leader at the Range Management Research Unit. “Recently, access to an extensive amount of long-term data from a variety of sources made it possible to compare environmental changes across large rangeland areas.”