Pulling It All Together With Ecological Site Descriptions.

The integration of edaphic and biological factors with climatic and geomorphic attributes to inform the concept of “site” has long been used as a natural resource management tool. Examples include habitat types (primarily USFS Region 1) and ecological types in the USFS Terrestrial Ecological Unit Inventory (TEUI) protocol. Even though they are not natural bodies within a landscape, “sites” are a logical grouping of factors useful for defining ecological processes, potential and management response to various practices. With the National Cooperative Soil Survey (NCSS) nearing completion, the opportunity to shift to soils as a basis for site classification and a basis for predicting vegetation dynamics is at hand.

‘Ecological sites’ are a concept that has been traditionally used to segment rangelands into management units.  An individual ‘ecological site’ is a specific kind of land that produces a characteristic kind and amount of vegetation and responds similarly to disturbance and management.  Ecological site concepts are currently being expanded nationally into include all lands in addition to range- forests, wetlands, subaqueous soils and highly managed lands.  Ecological site descriptions (ESDs) combine information about soils, geomorphology, climate, plants, and animals (ecological sites), as well as the ecological processes that occur and include state and transition models (STMs) and management guidance and implications. 

 Current research using ecological sites as a framework include efforts to:   document change in landscapes affected by hydrocarbon development (oil/gas/fracking and the associated infrastructure), characterize outcomes in semi-arid rangelands after fire, climate change and other vegetation disturbance, elucidate management units for subaqueous soils, and organize dynamic soil property information by crop production and management regimes.