Geology topics

Travis Belote

Publications and source records attributed to Travis Belote.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

USGS2021

Management foundations for navigating ecological transformation by resisting, accepting, or directing social-ecological change

Despite striking global change, management to ensure healthy landscapes and sustained natural resources has tended to set objectives on the basis of the historical range of variability in stationary ecosystems. Many social–ecological systems are moving into novel conditions that can result in ecological transformation. We present four foundations to enable a transition to future-oriented conservation and management that increases capacity to manage change. The foundations are to identify plausible social–ecological trajectories, to apply upstream and deliberate engagement and decision-making with stakeholders, to formulate management pathways to desired futures, and to consider a portfolio approach to manage risk and account for multiple preferences across space and time. We use the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska as a case study to illustrate how the four foundations address common land management challenges for navigating transformation and deciding when, where, and how to resist, accept, or direct social–ecological change.

Alaska↗

USGS2020

A guidebook to spatial datasets for conservation planning under climate change in the Pacific Northwest

This guidebook provides user-friendly overviews of a variety of spatial datasets relevant to conservation and management of natural resources in the face of climate change in the Pacific Northwest, United States. Each guidebook chapter was created using a standardized template to summarize a spatial dataset or a group of closely related datasets. Datasets were selected according to standardized criteria based on input through a collaborative process involving researchers and natural-resource managers throughout the Pacific Northwest region. In each chapter, basic spatial and temporal information is provided for the dataset, along with a conceptual overview, glossary of key terms, links to download data and supporting documentation, a brief methods summary describing how the dataset was created, guidelines for dataset interpretation, assessment of uncertainties along with evaluation of caveats and simplifying assumptions, and information about potential and actual conservation applications of the dataset. Collectively, this information provides natural-resource managers with “snapshots” of a variety of datasets representing diverse processes and conditions, including climate projections, changes in hydrologic conditions, vegetation and fire-regime shifts, animal habitat changes, species movements, and topographic and soil conditions relevant to climate change. Along with other types of data and site-specific information, the datasets described in this guidebook have the potential to inform management of valued natural resources throughout the Pacific Northwest region in the context of adaptation to changing climate conditions.

Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington↗

USGS2014

Applying threshold concepts to conservation management of dryland ecosystems: Case studies on the Colorado Plateau

Ecosystems may occupy functionally distinct alternative states, some of which are more or less desirable from a management standpoint. Transitions from state to state are usually associated with a particular trigger or sequence of triggers, such as the addition or subtraction of a disturbance. Transitions are often not linear, rather it is common to see an abrupt transition come about even though the trigger increases only incrementally; these are examples of threshold behaviors. An ideal monitoring program, such as the National Park Service’s Inventory and Monitoring Program, would quantify triggers, and be able to inform managers when measurements of a trigger are approaching a threshold so that management action can avoid an unwanted state transition. Unfortunately, both triggers and the threshold points at which state transitions occur are generally only partially known. Using case studies, we advance a general procedure to help identify triggers and estimate where threshold dynamics may occur. Our procedure is as follows: (1) Operationally define the ecosystem type being considered; we suggest that the ecological site concept of the Natural Resource Conservation Service is a useful system, (2) Using all available a priori knowledge to develop a state-and-transition model (STM), which defines possible ecosystem states, plausible transitions among them and likely triggers, (3) Validate the STM by verifying the existence of its states to the greatest degree possible, (4) Use the STM model to identify transitions and triggers likely to be detectable by a monitoring program, and estimate to the greatest degree possible the value of a measurable indicator of a trigger at the point that a state transition is imminent (tipping point), and values that may indicate when management intervention should be considered (assessment points). We illustrate two different methods for attaining these goals using a data-rich case study in Canyonlands National Park, and a data-poor case study in Wupatki National Monument. In the data-rich case, STMs are validated and revised, and tipping and assessment points are estimated using statistical analysis of data. In the data-poor case, we develop an iterative expert opinion survey approach to validate the degree of confidence in an STM, revise the model, identify lack of confidence in specific model components, and create reasonable first approximations of tipping and assessment points, which can later be refined when more data are available. Our goal should be to develop the best set of models possible given the level of information available to support decisions, which is often not much. The approach presented here offers a flexible means of achieving this goal, and determining specific research areas in need of study.

Book chapter↗