Computerized Rangeland Information System

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: Conditions on U.S. rangelands have long been a source of concern to natural resource experts and land stewards. Within the past two decades environmental and social concerns have resulted in statutes and regulations prompting for improved land, water, and ecological monitoring and management practices. These mandates imply a need for significant amounts of information for managing, planning, and inventorying rangelands. The National Academy of Science published the NRC 1994 Report, Rangeland Health, as an alternative to Range Condition methodology. This report concluded that current rangeland inventories do not provide the data needed to support national assessments of rangeland health. The NRC Committee stressed that standardization of monitoring systems must occur and recommended that rangeland health be assessed based on the status of multiple environmental indicators representing the four basic ecological processes. The report did not produce a method and expressed a need for improved evaluations regarding ecological health of the nation's rangelands. The science of assessing rangelands is changing as concepts evolve, yet existing systems appear to be disincentives for land managers to incorporate. Rangeland monitoring is a tool to optimize economic benefits, improve and sustain ecological functions, and comply with legal mandates. The CRIS3 will reduce confusion by clearly translating ecological concepts involving complex processes and components, into standardized terms that the public can comprehend, and resource specialists can use to determine rangeland health.