Interest in bees has grown dramatically in recent years in light of several studies that have reported widespread declines in bees and other pollinators. Investigating declines in wild bees can be difficult, however, due to the lack of faunal surveys that provide baseline data of bee richness and diversity. Protected lands such as national monuments and national parks can provide unique opportunities to learn about and monitor bee populations dynamics in a natural setting because the opportunity for large-scale changes to the landscape are reduced compared to unprotected lands.
On April 26th, 2018, Purgatoire Watershed Weed Management Collaborative hosted a workshop focused on noxious weed management and land restoration. The purpose of the workshop was to educate landowners on the serious threat of noxious weeds to both the economy and environment of Las Animas County as well as techniques to restore their land. This presentation, by Lori Brown, discusses plant growth, forage supply and demand, carrying capacity and stocking rate, roots, and livestock production.
This document provides guidance on how rangeland monitoring tools, including remote sensing technology, can be used to improve rangeland management on a landscape scale.
Basic topics covered in this technical reference include riparian-wetland area attributes and processes, resource assessments and inventories of riparian-wetland areas, development of good resource management objectives, management strategy factors, grazing treatments, and collaborative monitoring. Examples of tools, techniques, and treatments are provided, but they do not represent all of the “tools in the toolbox” that are available to resource managers. Although the term riparian is used alone throughout this document, riparian-wetland area is implied.
The purpose of this publication is to describe the benefits of riparian areas and how they can be managed for better agricultural and wildlife production. Management described herein will focus on the Blackland Prairie and Post Oak Savannah ecoregions of central and eastern Texas, which cover most of the Middle Trinity River basin. The recommendations given here should be viewed as a starting point for landowners who can then adapt the management plan to fit their specific property.
A Guide to Enhancing Rivers, Streams and Desert Washes for Birds and Other Wildlife.
Produced by Tucson Audubon Society, Audubon Arizona, and Arizona Game and Fish.
The Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program has requested experimental flow releases from Flaming Gorge Dam for (1) elevated summer base flows to promote larval endangered Colorado pikeminnow, and (2) midsummer spike flows to disadvantage spawning invasive smallmouth bass. This white paper explores the effects of these proposed flow modifications on riparian vegetation and sediment deposition downstream along the Green River.
Sher at al. perform a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the vegetation response to a single watershed-scale restoration effort that includes 40 sites along the Dolores River from 2010-2014.
Sher, A.A., El Waer, H., González, E., Anderson, R., Henry, A.L., Biedron, R. and Yue, P., 2018. Native species recovery after reduction of an invasive tree by biological control with and without active removal. Ecological Engineering, 111, pp.167-175.
This document describes the biology and management implications of reed canary grass, a rhizomatous perennial grass that is currently found in all but six of the lower 48 states.
This report synthesizes key programmatic successes and lessons learned from collaborative watershed restoration partnerships in the Colorado River Basin (CRB), with emphasis on partnerships funded by the Walton Family Foundation (WFF or Foundation), through its Freshwater Initiative Program. The intended audience for this report includes potential funders interested in replicating or contributing to a comparable program, as well as other professionals and community members looking to initiate or enhance collaborative restoration efforts within their respective watersheds.
Landscape conservation design (LCD) is a collaborative, inter-disciplinary planning process that integrates societal values and multi-sector interests with the best available social and natural sciences to assess vulnerabilities, risks, and opportunities; and develops coordinated, spatially-explicit strategies that reduce land-use conflicts, enhance the adaptive capacity of the socio-ecological system, and maintains ecosystem function across the landscape for future generations.
The purpose of the Stream Stewardship and Recovery Handbook is to create an educational resource for private landowners to better understand their streamside properties in the context of the larger watershed, what they can do to practice good stream stewardship and when/how they should engage outside help for stewardship or recovery projects.
Using high-resolution multitemporal, multispectral data, the authors classified tamarisk defoliation in the Glen Canyon area in Arizona. The high spatial resolution classification provides key information to effectively inform restoration treatments regarding where and how much mechanical removal or controlled burning could be performed.
The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish has published a new handbook for Habitat Restoration and Management of Native and Non-native Trees in Southwestern Riparian Ecosystems. This Handbook addresses wildlife use of non-native riparian habitats, including tamarisk, Russian olive, and Siberian elm. It also provides recommendations for restoration of riparian habitats following chemical, mechanical, and/or biological control of non-native trees.