Resources for Resilient LandscapesEmily Downing2023-05-04T16:27:16-06:00
Resilient Landscapes Resource List
The latest science and tools related to sagebrush, wetland, and wet meadow conservation in the Intermountain West.
What is the Resilient Landscapes Resource List?
Our partners often find themselves lost in a sea of science and resources as they implement conservation across the Intermountain West. To assist partners with access to resources for project planning and assessment and to cut down on time spent searching for resources, we created a one-stop-shop for key resources related to fire and invasive annual grasses, wet meadow restoration, grazing, woodland expansion, game corridors, and more. Resources that can be found via this resource list include science papers, frameworks and strategies, reports, data sources and tools, research syntheses and guides, webinars and workshops, factsheets, facilitation and collaboration resources, and communications resources.
Find Science and Resources!
Use the filtering options of the Resilient Landscapes Resource List to filter by topic, region, or resource type. If filtering by topic, please also select “Multiple Topics” for best results. Use the search bar to search for resources using keywords. Click the column titles to sort results by column. Print, copy, or export your filtered resources to Excel, a CSV file, or a PDF using the tools above the search bar.
Contact Us
We’d love your feedback! Are you excited about the Resilient Landscapes Resource List? Are there additional resources you think we should include? Do you need help accessing research papers? Reach out to our Science to Implementation Specialist by email with questions or comments.
Title
Author
Year
Topic
Region
State
Resource
Summary
Link
BLM Wildfire Risk Assessment Story Map
BLM
Fire and Fuels
Rangewide
Multiple
Data Source or Tool
This ESRI Story Map provides a summary of the methodology, data layer inputs, and data processing techniques used in the BLM Wildfire Risk Assessment. It is intended to be used as a communication tool internally within the BLM and externally with the public.
Burn Severity Portal
USFS, USGS
2021
Fire and Fuels
Rangewide
Multiple
Data Source or Tool
This interagency burn severity portal provides comprehensive access to federal burn severity data. Information about the various burn severity mapping programs and access to current and historical data products are provided.
Fire Effects Information System
USFS
Fire and Fuels
Rangewide
Multiple
Data Source or Tool
This database allows users to find fire effects and fire regime information by species common or scientific name.
Basic Fire Facts StoryMap
Great Basin Fire Science Exchange
2021
Fire and Fuels
Rangewide
Multiple
Factsheet
This Fire Facts StoryMap was created to provide basic wildfire information, background, terminology, and resources to increase your knowledge and understanding of wildland fire and the ways we can all contribute to better fire outcomes.
Fact Sheet: Adapting western North American forests to climate change and wildfires: Ten common questions.
Northern Arizona University Ecological Restoration Institute
2022
Fire and Fuels
Rangewide
Multiple
Factsheet
There is strong scientific evidence for why and how to adapt western forests to climate change and future wildfires. In this factsheet, the authors addressed 10 common questions about adaptive forest and wildfire management.
Infrequent periods of favorable conditions drive post-fire sagebrush recovery
Rocky Mountain Research Station
2021
Fire and Fuels
Great Basin
Multiple
Factsheet
This Science Spotlight highlights research on the climatic conditions that favor post-fire sagebrush recovery. Research from RMRS researchers is summarized in this factsheet.
Muddy Waters: Reducing post-fire erosion in an intensifying fire environment
Rocky Mountain Research Station
2022
Fire and Fuels
Rangewide
Multiple
Factsheet
This Science You Can Use (In 5 Minutes) factsheet explores new science and tools that help managers to reduce post-fire erosion, testing practices like use of wood mulch and straw bale check dams to trap sediments.
Rangeland Wildfires and Invasives Endanger Future of Western CommunIties and Economies
Intermountain West Joint Venture, WAFWA
2020
Fire and Fuels
Rangewide
Multiple
Factsheet
Fire and invasive annual grasses drive the rapid loss of sagebrush ecosystems year after year. In this factsheet, learn about what needs to be done now to stop this harmful cycle.
Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity Viewer
USGS, USFS
2022
Fire and Fuels
Rangewide
Multiple
Framework or Strategy
Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) is a joint USGS and USDA Forest Service program that consistently maps the burn severity and extent of large fires across all lands of the US from 1984 to present. This Viewer allows users to view this data.
National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy
DOI, USDA
2014
Fire and Fuels
Rangewide
Multiple
Framework or Strategy
The National Strategy describes how the Nation can focus future efforts in making strategic investments to reduce the severe effects of wildfire on areas of high risk. The National Strategy is the result of a collaborative effort by Federal, state, local, and tribal governments and nongovernmental partners and public stakeholders, in conjunction with scientific data analysis
The Integrated Rangeland Fire Management Strategy Actionable Science Plan
DOI
2016
Fire and Fuels
Rangewide
Multiple
Framework or Strategy
The Integrated Rangeland Fire Management Strategy outlined the need for coordinated, science-based adaptive management to achieve long-term protection, conservation, and restoration of the sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) ecosystem. A key component of this management approach is the identification of knowledge gaps that limit implementation of effective strategies to meet current management challenges. The tasks and actions identified in the Strategy address several broad topics related to management of the sagebrush ecosystem. This science plan is organized around these topics and specifically focuses on fire, invasive plant species and their effects on altering fire regimes, restoration, sagebrush and greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), and climate and weather.
Adapting Western US Forests to Climate Change & Wildfires: Ten Common Questions
Sustainable Northwest
2022
Fire and Fuels
Rangewide
Multiple
Other
However, strong evidence provides guidance for why and how to adapt western North American forests to climate change and future wildfires. A team of leading fire and forest scientists have summarized the consensus in the field on 10 common questions about fuel reduction in seasonally dry, fire-prone forests.
A Conservation Paradox in the Great Basin—Altering Sagebrush Landscapes With Fuel Breaks To Reduce Habitat Loss From Wildfire
USGS
2018
Fire and Fuels
Great Basin
Multiple
Report
This report is intended to provide an initial assessment of both the potential effectiveness of fuel breaks and their ecological costs and benefits.
A Review of Fire Effects On Vegetation and Soils in the Great Basin Region: Response and Ecological Site Characteristics
USGS
2013
Fire and Fuels
Great Basin
Multiple
Report
This review synthesizes the state of knowledge on fire effects on vegetation and soils in semi-arid ecosystems in the Great Basin Region.
Working Paper 45: Evidence for Widespread Changes in the Structure, Composition, and Fire Regimes of Western North American Forest Landscapes
Northern Arizona University Ecological Restoration Institute
2022
Fire and Fuels
Rangewide
Multiple
Report
In this working paper from the NAU Ecological Restoration Institute, the authors review the impacts of more than a century of unprecedented, human-caused fire exclusion on the structure and composition of fire-dependent forest landscapes.
A Field Guide for Rapid Assessment of Post-Wildfire Recovery Potential in Sagebrush and Pinyon-Juniper Ecosystems in the Great Basin
Rocky Mountain Research Station
2015
Fire and Fuels
Great Basin
Multiple
Research Synthesis or Guide
This field guide provides a framework for rapidly evaluating post-fire resilience to disturbance, or recovery potential, and resistance to invasive annual grasses, and for determining the need and suitability of the burned area for seeding.
Guide For Quantifying Fuels in the Sagebrush Steppe and Juniper Woodlands of the Great Basin
USGS
2009
Fire and Fuels
Great Basin
Multiple
Research Synthesis or Guide
This guide provides the necessary landscape-level inputs required by fire behavior and fire effects models along with building custom fuelbeds. Through the use of photographs and tables with the range
of values for each vegetation type, a user should be able to quickly appraise their site by fuel stratum.
Mountain Big Sagebrush: Fire Regimes
Northern Rockies Fire Science Networrk
2019
Fire and Fuels
Northern Rockies
Multiple
Research Synthesis or Guide
This report synthesis of information on historical patterns and contemporary changes in fuels and fire regimes in mountain big sagebrush communities (Innes and Zouhar 2018) is available in the Fire Effects Information System (FEIS).
Climate Change in Western US Deserts: Potential for Increased Wildfire and Invasive Annual Grasses
Abatzoglou et al.
2011
Fire and Fuels
Rangewide
Multiple
Science Paper
The authors used a suite of downscaled climate projections for the mid–21st century to examine changes in critical physiological temperature thresholds, the timing and availability of moisture, and the potential for large wildfires.
Ecological effects of prescribed fire on a sagebrush-steppe rangeland
Elliot et al.
2020
Fire and Fuels
Great Basin
Idaho
Science Paper
This data publication contains data from a study trying to quantify prescribed fire impacts on surface and belowground changes at a sagebrush site near Red Mountain, Idaho.
Fire frequency impacts soil properties and processes in sagebrush steppe ecosystems of the Columbia Basin
Nichols et al.
2021
Fire and Fuels
Other
Other
Science Paper
This study evaluated how increased fire frequency affects soil biochemical properties (i.e. soil pH, soil organic matter (SOM), soil organic carbon (SOC), soil structure and mineral N) and processes (i.e. microbial and enzymatic activity) in a sagebrush-steppe ecosystem located in the Columbia Plateau Ecoregion, Washington, USA.
Large-scale wildfire reduces population growth in a peripheral population of sage-grouse
Dudley et al.
2021
Fire and Fuels
Rangewide
Multiple
Science Paper
Following a significant wildfire event in the southwest periphery of sage-grouse range, the authors implemented a before-after-control-impact study with long-term paired (BACIP) datasets of male sage-grouse surveyed from traditional breeding grounds (leks) within and outside the wildfire boundary. The study estimated sage-grouse population rate of change in apparent abundance (λ̂ ) at burned and unburned areas before and after wildfire and derived BACIP ratios, which provide controlled evidence of wildfire impact.
Limitations to Postfire Seedling Establishment: The Role of Seeding Technology, Water Availability, and Invasive Plant Abundance
Jeremy et al.
2010
Fire and Fuels
Rangewide
Multiple
Science Paper
The objective of this study was to determine the degree to which water availability, invasive plant abundance, and seeding technology influence postfire seedling establishment.
Potential for post-fire recovery of Greater Sage-grouse habitat
Riginos et al.
2019
Fire and Fuels
Great Basin
Multiple
Science Paper
The authors used long-term data from the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources Range Trend Project to assess short-term (1–4 yr post-treatment) and long-term (6–10 yr post-treatment) effects of fire on vegetation cover at 16 sites relative to sage-grouse habitat vegetation guidelines.
The authors investigated management-friendly restoration techniques aimed at increasing sagebrush cover in a sagebrush system important to Gunnison sage-grouse and impacted by fire in western Colorado.
Repeated fire altered succession and increased fire behavior in basin big sagebrush-native perennial grasslands
Ellsworth et al.
2020
Fire and Fuels
Great Basin
Oregon
Science Paper
To improve understanding of interactions of vegetation and repreated burns, the authors quantified postfire patterns of vegetation accumulation and modeled potential fire behavior on sites that were burned and and then reburned in John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, Oregon, USA.
Sagebrush recovery patterns after fuel treatments mediated by disturbance type and plant functional group interactions
Chambers et al.
2021
Fire and Fuels
Rangewide
Multiple
Science Paper
The authors evaluated 10-yr effects of woody fuel treatments on sagebrush recruitment and plant functional group interactions using Sagebrush Steppe Treatment Evaluation Project data.
Synthesis Paper: Assessment of Research on Rangeland Fire as a Management Practice
Limb et al.
2016
Fire and Fuels
Rangewide
Multiple
Science Paper
The authors reviewed and summarized current literature on prescribed fire as a global management practice.
Weather affects post-fire recovery of sagebrush-steppe communities and model transferability among sites