Southern Rockies LCC Project
The goal of this project is to provide land managers with comprehensive, current information regarding springs distribution and springs-dependent species across the Southern Rocky Mountains landscape in a secure, accessible, and user-friendly format that allows for analysis of springs ecosystem vulnerability to land management practices and climate change.
The SRLCC encompasses 318,600 square miles, extending into Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Idaho, and Wyoming. Much of the region is managed by federal agencies (US Forest Service—69,883 square miles, BLM— 69,522 square miles, NPS—10,553 square miles, USFWS—714 square miles, DOD 745 square miles, and BOR square miles. Thirty-two Tribes control 56,585 square miles. The remaining lands are managed by state, local, and private jurisdictions.
This project has four objectives:
Objective 1 - Develop a springs geodatabase, and provide a secure, accessible, Web Mapping Service (WMS) of springs throughout the SRLCC, combined with simple geocollaborative tools to allow cooperating agencies, Tribes, institutions, NGOs, and researchers to easily access, and, if they wish, share information across administrative boundaries, and to engage volunteers to locate unmapped springs and assist with monitoring efforts.
Objective 2 - Develop an annotated list of macroscopic springs-dependent species (SDS) and associated information throughout the SRLCC.
Objective 3 – Develop an outreach program to disseminate information and train resource managers to use the protocols and geocollaborative tools, using quarterly webinars, online videos and tutorials, personalized online sessions, and workshops.
Objective 4: Springs Use Assessment and Climate Change Risk Modeling.