Posts Tagged ‘Social’
Guide to vegetation treatment costs for land management in the Great Basin region
View fact sheet. High and low costs represent those commonly reported by SageSTEP collaborators and the NRCS in 2010 and 2011. Costs reported here are meant to provide a starting point only and should be verified through additional research. Many of these treatments are eligible for cost share assistance through the NRCS Environmental Quality Incentives…
Read MoreCollaborating for healthy forests and communities: A guide for building partnerships among diverse interests
View guide. There are many reasons for building an alliance among agencies and citizens in forest and rangeland communities. In the big picture, the purpose is primarily to reach decisions that are objectively better. Essentially, the quality of decisions is improved by a multi-agency effort that includes a role for citizens and an environment in…
Read MorePublic perceptions of sagebrush ecosystem management: A longitudinal panel study of residents in the Great Basin, 2006-2010
View dissertation. The study uses data from a mail-back questionnaire sent to residents in 2006 and again in 2010. Overall, 698 respondents comprise the panel of interest. Results suggest landscape scale events such as wildfire, as well as agency management and outreach programs, had little influence on respondents’ perceptions of agencies or management options over…
Read MoreMeasuring regional economic impacts from wildfire: Case study of southeast Oregon cattle-ranching business
View report. A ranch-level economic model is linked to a social accounting matrix (SAM), a.k.a. LP-SAM, to investigate the impact of wildfire on the regional economy. This study is the expansion of Alevy and Harris (2008) with a stochastic wildfire model based on historical wildfire data. The LP-SAM model is used to estimate the impact…
Read MoreEstimating expected fire suppression cost savings due to vegetation management on pinyon pine and juniper invaded sagebrush rangelands
View conference proceeding. Wildfire suppression costs in the United States have increased steadily over the last decades (Stephens and Ruth 2005, Calkin et al. 2005, Gebert et al 2007, Westerling et al. 2006, GAO 2007), with related expenditures by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management exceeding a billion dollars per year in…
Read MoreRanching, invasive annual grasses, and the external costs of wildfire in Great Basin: A stochastic dynamic programming approach
View conference proceeding. The spread of invasive annual grasses and resulting escalation of wildfire frequency and severity pose a significant and growing threat to the economic and ecological viability of the rangelands in the Great Basin. While private ranchers have the option to limit the severity of wildfires through fuels removal treatments, few ranchers engage…
Read MoreComparing citizens’ and managers’ concerns about sagebrush management and restoration in the Great Basin
View article. The Great Basin sagebrush steppe ecosystem is among the most imperiled in the U.S. Cheatgrass invasion, conifer encroachment, and catastrophic wildfires are considered to be primary catalysts of decline. Efforts are underway to restore and increase the resiliency of this damaged ecosystem through broad-scale applications of fuel reduction and restoration treatments involving mechanical…
Read MorePublic perceptions of sagebrush ecosystem management in the Great Basin
View article. Intact sagebrush communities in the Great Basin are rapidly disappearing because of invasion of nonnative plants, large wildfires, and encroachment of pinyon and juniper woodlands. Land management options, including the use of prescribed fire, grazing, herbicides, or mechanical treatments, can reduce the potential for wildfire and restore plant communities. Public acceptance of management…
Read MoreEconomic risks of cheatgrass invasion on a simulated eastern Oregon ranch
View article. The potential of invasive plants to alter fuel properties over time has implications for the ranchers of semiarid rangelands throughout the world. A prime example of this phenomenon is the cheatgrass invasion of the native shrub-steppe lands in Great Basin of the western United States. The purpose of this study is to develop…
Read MoreInvasive weeds, wildfire, and rancher decision-making in the Great Basin
View conference proceeding. In this article, a numerical dynamic model is developed to characterize the decision problem of a rancher operating on rangelands in northern Nevada that are affected by invasive annual grasses and wildfire. The model incorporates decisions about herd size management of a cow-calf operation and fuels treatment to reduce the size of…
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