Related Link(s) RangeView

Monitoring rangelands in the past meant riding out on horseback, or by truck, jeep, or all-terrain vehicle to check the health of pastures. In the future, new tools developed from satellite imagery and other geospatial information may help ranchers and natural resource managers make decisions about land use.


Satellite observations from the NASA Earth Observing System record images of the earth's surface. Maps developed from the images are analyzed in various ways. Some maps, for example, indicate greenness – which refers to the amount and type of vegetation. The condition and availability of vegetation may be limited, since it depends on weather. Specialists in geospatial information analyze the satellite images to tell whether it is a wet year (El Nino) or a dry year (La Nina). They compare the images between weeks of the eyar, over different seasons, between years, and against the long-term average. "We can monitor and make assessments of range conditions across the entire state," says Stuart Marsh of the Arizona Remote Sensing Center.


The development of these new tools began with a workshop, with participants from the Arizona State Land Development, Arizona Game and Fish, tribal governments, U.S. Forest Service, Arizona Cattlegrowers Association, ranchers, Cooperative Extension, and the state cartographer. Fifteen participants continue to work on the project and are developing materials and tools specific to the land they manage. A second set of workshops helped to fine-tune the web site.


"Ranchers who are used to keeping detailed notes on their rangelands can use this technology to get a birds-eye view of the land the complements their field notes," says geospatial Extension specialist Barron Orr. To encourage practical applications of the technology, the next phase include train-the-trainer workshops at county Extension offices throughout the state. Development of a CD-ROM will provide the technology to those areas of the state where Internet connections are less than adequate.