Ecological sites are the basic entity used in rangeland health assessment. This study evaluates the synergistic use of multiand hyper-spectral satellite imagery for sub-pixel classification of ecological sites in semiarid rangelands. Hyperion and Landsat enhanced thematic mapper (ETM) data are included in a two-step procedure to mapping ecological sites in Patagonian rangelands of Argentina. Fi...

Public land management agencies, such as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), are charged with managing rangelands throughout the western United States for multiple uses, such as livestock grazing and conservation of sensitive species and their habitats. Monitoring of condition and trends of these rangelands, particularly with respect to effects of livestock grazing, provides critical informati...

Cattle and other livestock excrete endogenous steroid hormones, including estrogens, androgens, and progestins; therefore, allowing grazing livestock direct access to surface waters can result in the release of steroids in agricultural watersheds. Elevated concentrations of steroids are problematic because low concentrations of certain steroids can affect fish reproduction. To assess the occurr...

Afforestation of marginal agricultural lands represents a promising option for carbon sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems. An ecosystem carbon model was used to generate new national maps of annual net primary production (NPP), one each for continuous land covers of ‘forest’, ‘crop’, and ‘rangeland’ over the entire U. S. continental area. Direct inputs of satellite “greenness” data from the...

Drought is common in rangeland environments and an understanding of its impacts on the structure and function of rangeland ecosystems is paramount for developing effective management strategies. This research was the second of a series of studies investigating the impacts of varying seasonal droughts on northern Great Plains rangelands. Research was conducted on native rangeland during the 1998...

Rangeland monitoring services require the capability to investigate vegetation condition and to assess biomass production, especially in areas where local livelihood depends on rangeland status. Remote sensing solutions are strongly recommended, where the systematic acquisition of field data is not feasible and does not guarantee properly describing the spatio-temporal dynamics of wide areas. R...

Rangelands are globally extensive, provide fundamental ecosystem services, and are tightly coupled human-ecological systems. Rangeland sustainability depends largely on the implementation and utilization of various grazing and burning practices optimized to protect against soil erosion and transport. In many cases, however, land management practices lead to increased soil erosion and sediment f...

Reform (FAIR) Act implemented farm program contract payments that do not increase as agricultural prices fall, shifting farm policy toward a greater emphasis on risk management and, in particular, on crop insurance. This shift has resulted in the introduction of new types of insurance policies; especially those that provide both yield and price protection. Several new and innovative crop polici...

Renewable groundwater stress is quantified in the world's largest aquifersCharacteristic stress regimes are defined to determine the severity of stressOverstressed aquifers are mainly in rangeland biomes with some croplands.

A Fair Queueing Algorithm is proposed for data services in an integrated voice/data CDMA system. We introduce short-term and long-term fairness concepts to allocate data users fairly. Using these concepts, we propose Weighted Fair Queueing with Status Control(WFQS) in the consideration of a Generalized Processor Sharing(GPS) ¤uid-¤ow model. This proposed scheme allocates resources using channel...