Prototyping a Rangeland Decision Support System

This proposal is submitted under the Innovative Tools and Techniques Supporting the Practical Uses of Earth Science Observations topic. We seek to create a prototype rangeland decision support system that links remote sensing based rangeland products, a soil biogeochemical model and web-based tools for data mining, data management and product visualization. The resulting decision support system will be unique and innovative by not only providing operational remote sensing observations of rangeland condition, but also web-based tools that utilize these observations to provide critical information on soil fertility/productivity, greenhouse gas emissions, and potential erosion and sedimentation. Our Rangeland Decision Support System (RDSS) will build off of existing RANGES and DNDC tools. Landsat and MODIS prototype processing algorithms for rangeland condition (height, forage production, fractional cover) have been developed under the previous RANGES project and Phase I. The result of this Phase II project will be a series of web data management tools and a prototype RDSS for Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed and Santa Rita Experimental Range regions in Arizona.