• Main Author: Assessing Rangelands
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Tundra
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.200.8696; http://fresc.usgs.gov/products/fs/fs-125-02.pdf

It is important for land managers and technical assistance specialists to be able to assess the health of rangelands in order to know where to focus management efforts. The complexity of ecological processes, and the inherent expense of directly measuring site integrity, suggests a need for an evaluation process that focuses instead on biological and physical attributes. Overview Rangelands are natural ecosystems where the native vegetation consists predominantly of grasses, grass-like plants, forbs, or shrubs. Rangelands include natural grasslands, savannas, shrublands, oak and pinyon-juniper woodlands, many deserts, tundra, alpine communities, marshes, and wet meadows. It is important for land managers and technical assistance specialists to be able to assess the health of rangelands in order to know where to focus management efforts. Rangeland health is “the degree to which the integrity of the soil, vegetation, water, and air, as well as the ecological processes of the rangeland ecosystem, are balanced and sustained.” Integrity in this context means the “maintenance of the functional attributes characteristic of a locale, including normal variability.” Ecological processes functioning within a normal range of variation support a diverse mixture of plant and animal communities. These ecological processes include: the water cycle—the capture, storage, and redistribution of precipitation; energy flow—conversion of sunlight to plant and animal matter; and nutrient cycles—the cycle of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus through the physical and biotic components of the environment.