The interaction of rangeland management and environmental conditions in regulating forage quality - quantity and other ecosystem services

2013 Annual Report for SW12-110

Project Type: Research and Education
Funds awarded in 2012: $265,414.00
Projected End Date: 12/31/2016
Region: Western
State: California
Principal Investigator:

The interaction of rangeland management and environmental conditions in regulating forage quality - quantity and other ecosystem services

Summary

We have received input from a broad group of stakeholders to inform the design of the database and monitoring protocols. These are currently under development. On-ranch sampling of the effects of management on multiple ecosystem services occurred in the 2012-13 growing season and is being revamped for this current season to assess how management determines the impacts of, and recovery from, drought (which California is currently experiencing). In addition, past datasets have been gathered to inform the design of the database and will eventually be entered into the database.

Objectives/Performance Targets

Our objectives and performance targets are summarized below, including the status (and projected dates of completion) for each of these.

Objective 1: Assess how local to regional differences in environmental conditions determine:

a. Site-specific potential to provide multiple ecosystem services

b. The impacts of range management practices on suites of ecosystem services, and which practices are most effective for a given service at a given site

Performance targets related to this objective:

  1. Develop a web database of management practices and their impacts on ecosystem services.

While we had anticipated the database being public by now, this likely will not occur until late 2014 because the development of the database has been more complex than we had initially realized. Complexities are due to the multiple types of services being measured, the multiple measurement approaches for each of these services, the diversity of management approaches, and the multiple environmental factors that are determining these services (with focal services, measures, management practices and environmental factors differing across projects, so that most of them are not directly comparable without calibration). In order to build a database that can accommodate, compare and summarize these diverse types of data, we have taken the following steps:

– Following up on previous stakeholder surveys and workgroup sessions (see last year’s report) to further prioritize types of management practices, monitoring approaches and ecosystem services.

–  Pulling together past management datasets to assess the diversity of measures used and how to calibrate across them.

–  Field trials to calibrate across multiple measures for a given service were supposed to occur this field season, but have been delayed due to the drought in California. If we get appreciable rains in upcoming months, we will deploy these measures this season and next season. If not, we will focus them on the next growing season (fall 2014-spring 2015).

2. Develop a “Measuring ecosystem services handbook” and “toolkit for measuring ecosystem services.” Based on workshops and surveys of stakeholders, we have decided to revise the initial plans. Rather than one set of ecosystem service measurements, we have divided them into two. The first set will be a more comprehensive, quantitative set of measurements, appropriate for research, official monitoring programs and managers who are enthusiastic to monitor the impacts of their practices. We are fine-tuning a draft of this currently and will convene stakeholders to comment on this draft during the summer of 2014. These will include standardized, repeatable measures, similar to those originally proposed (e.g. infiltrometers to determine infiltration, cohesion testers to determine erosion potential, lab tests of soil to determine soil organic matter and water holding capacity, etc.). The second set of protocols is more informal, providing a quick, qualitative assessment by managers. For example, rather than official determination of invasive species cover, they would assess invasive cover by selecting the closest match in cover from five to eight photos depicting different levels of invasion (this would calibrate across individual assessors). The same type of approach will occur for production, visible erosion events and visible runoff (lack of water infiltration).

3. Recruit managers to participate in the database. This has been an on-going, successful effort. We have provided stakeholder feedback sessions, as well as talks and posters highlighting the project at a number of venues and write-ups in newsletters including: California Rangeland Conservation Coalition, California Climate and Agriculture Network, Cooperative Extension field days, as well as to a number of conservation groups utilizing grazing as a management tool (California Native Grassland Association, California Invasive Plant Council).

Objective 2:  Improve the effectiveness of range management by enhancing the availability of information for developing management plans.

The initial two steps are described above (developing the database and the measuring services handbook and toolkit). The other two performance targets will be provided towards the end of the project, once the work is synthesized.

1. Develop an on-line decision support tool for managing multiple services.

2. Develop regional maps of the distribution of multiple services.

Accomplishments/Milestones

As stated above, the major accomplishments include:

1. Fine-tuning the priority ecosystem services, measurements, environmental conditions and management practices to include in the database.

2. Developing calibrations across multiple approaches to measuring each ecosystem service.

3. Recruiting agencies, nonprofits and individual ranchers to participate in the database project.

4. Developing the quantitative ecosystem measures handbook (qualitative one is still in development).

In addition, we have done substantial on-ranch measurements of multiple ecosystem services during the 2012-13 growing season. Sampling has been postponed so far for the 2013-14 growing season due to the severe drought that California is experiencing. While this is postponing some of the data collection planned for this year, it also provides the opportunity to assess how management practices impact the response and recovery of ecosystem services to drought. We are currently retooling our sampling plan to assess how the impacts of drought vary by climate region and management practices, and how these will impact recovery from drought in the next growing season. Since drought is the greatest concern of range managers in California, this is an important opportunity to address one of our most pressing challenges in managing for ecosystem services. So while it was not the initial focus of the project, it will be an important contribution to both science and management.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

The main impacts of this project will occur towards the end, as the database and decision support tool are deployed. But current outreach efforts to gain stakeholder input and participation have initiated important discussions about the importance of multiple ecosystem services and realistic monitoring protocols across a wide group of stakeholders.

Collaborators:

Roger Ingram

rsingram@ucanr.edu
Advisor
UC Cooperative Extension
11477 E Ave
Auburn, CA 95603
Office Phone: 5308897385
Website: http://ceplacernevada.ucdavis.edu/
Jeff Hunewill

djhunewill@hotmail.com
Producer
PO Box 368
Bridgeport, CA 93517
Office Phone: 7609327710
Website: www.hunewillranch.com
Glenn Nader

ganader@ucanr.edu
Advisor
UC Cooperative Extension
142A Garden Highway
Yuba City, CA 95991
Office Phone: 5308227515
Website: http://ucanr.edu/Find_People/People_Search/index.cfm?facultyid=1630
David Lewis

djlewis@ucanr.edu
Director, CE Marin County
1682 Novato Blvd
Suite 150B
Novato, CA 94947
Office Phone: 4154734204
Website: http://ucanr.edu/Find_People/People_Search/index.cfm?facultyid=1335
Andrew Latimer

amlatimer@ucdavis.edu
Associate Professor
UC Davis
Dept Plant Sciences, Mail Stop 1, 1210 PES
1 Shields Ave
Davis, CA 95616
Office Phone: 5307520896
Website: http://www.plantsciences.ucdavis.edu/plantsciences_faculty/latimer/
Royce Larsen

relarsen@ucdavis.edu
Advisor
UC Cooperative Extension
350 N Main St
Suite B
Templeton, CA 93465
Office Phone: 8054344106
Website: http://ucanr.edu/Find_People/People_Search/index.cfm?facultyid=1296
Kevin Kester

kevinkester@hughes.net
Producer, President, CCA
California Cattlemen's Association
68102 Slacks Canyon Rd
Parkfield, CA 93451
Office Phone: 8054632337
Website: http://www.calcattlemen.org/About_CCA/CCA_President.aspx
Sheila Barry

sbarry@ucanr.edu
County Director, Santa Clara
UC Cooperative Extension
1553 Berger Dr, Bldg 1
San Jose, CA 95112
Office Phone: 4082823106
Website: http://ucanr.edu/Find_People/People_Search/index.cfm?facultyid=112
Pelayo Alvarez

pelayo@carangeland.org
Director
California Rangelands Conservation Coalition
1303 J Street, Suite 270
Sacramento, CA 95814
Office Phone: 9163135800
Website: http://carangeland.org/contactus.html
John Harper

jmharper@ucanr.edu
Advisor
UC Cooperative Extension
890 N Bush St
Ukiah, CA 95482
Office Phone: 7074634495
Website: http://danr.ucop.edu/uccelr
Morgan Doran

mpdoran@ucanr.edu
County Director
UC Cooperative Extension
501 Texas St
1st Floor
Fairfield, CA 94533
Office Phone: 7077841326
Website: http://cesolano.ucdavis.edu/Livestock_and_Range_Management/index.htm
Carol Dobbas

cjdobbas@yahoo.com
Producer, Executive Director
Upper Feather River Watershed Group
PO 975
Loyalton, CA 96118
Office Phone: 5309943057
Website: http://www.ufrwg.org/index.html
Josh Davy

jsdavy@ucanr.edu
Farm Advisor
UC Cooperative Extension
1754 Walnut St
Red Bluff, CA 96080
Office Phone: 5305273101
Website: http://cetehama.ucdavis.edu/Livestock/
Theresa Becchetti

tabecchetti@ucanr.edu
Farm Advisor
UC Cooperative Extension
3800 Cornucopia Way
Suite A
Modesto, CA 95358
Office Phone: 2095286800
Website: http://cestanislaus.ucdavis.edu/
Toby O'Geen

atogeen@ucdavis.edu
Soil Research Specialist
UC Cooperative Extension
2152 PES, LAWR
1 Shields Ave
Davis, CA 95616
Office Phone: 5307522155
Website: http://lawr.ucdavis.edu/directory_facultypages.php?id=46
Elisa Noble

enoble@cfbf.com
Federal Policy- Livestock, Public Lands, Natural Resources
California Farm Bureau
2300 River Plaza Dr
Sacramento, CA 95833
Office Phone: 9165615610
Truman Young

tpyoung@ucdavis.edu
Professor
UC Davis
Dept Plant Sciences, 1210 PES, Mail Stop 1
1 Shields Ave
Davis, CA 95616
Office Phone: 5307549925
Website: http://tpyoung.ucdavis.edu/
Kenneth Tate

kwtate@ucdavis.edu
Endowed Chair of Rangeland Watersheds
UC Davis
Dept Plant Sciences, 1210 PES, Mail Stop 1
1 Shields Ave
Davis, CA 95616
Office Phone: 5307548988
Website: http://www.plantsciences.ucdavis.edu/plantsciences_faculty/tate/
Tracy Schohr

tracy@carangeland.org
Coordinator
California Rangelands Conservation Coalition
Dept Plant Sciences, Mail Stop 1, 1210 PES
1 Shields Ave
Davis, CA 95616
Office Phone: 9167162643
Chris Rose

chris.rose@solanorcd.org
Executive Director
Solano County RCD
1170 North Lincoln St
Suite 110
Dixon, CA 95620
Office Phone: 7076781655
Website: http://www.solanorcd.org/
Kevin Rice

kjrice@ucdavis.edu
Professor
UC Davis
Dept Plant Sciences, 1210 PES, Mail stop 1
1 Shields Ave
Davis, CA 95616
Office Phone: 5307528529
Website: http://www.plantsciences.ucdavis.edu/ricelab/