Science in Practice Portal

LANDSCAPE APPROACH Q&A

• What is a “landscape approach” for managing public lands?

• The BLM uses the landscape approach to examine large, connected geographic areas to help fully recognize natural resource conditions and trends, natural and human influences, and opportunities for resource conservation, restoration, and development. The approach enables the BLM to identify important ecological values and patterns of environmental change that may not be evident when examining smaller and more local land areas.

  The broader perspective provided through a landscape approach helps focus and integrate local management efforts. A landscape approach also provides an important foundation for developing coordinated management strategies with partner agencies, stakeholders, and American Indian tribes.

• Why did the BLM develop a landscape approach?

• BLM-managed public lands face complex and widespread environmental challenges that transcend traditional management boundaries, such as wildfire, weed and insect outbreaks, energy development, and urban growth. The BLM uses a landscape-scale management approach to better understand these challenges and support balanced stewardship of the diverse natural resources of the public lands.

• How are landscapes defined?

• Landscapes can be defined or classified in many ways. To gain a broader perspective on ecological values and trends, the BLM uses a landscape classification called ecoregions. More specifically, the BLM uses Level III ecoregions, which have been classified by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation and the Environmental Protection Agency as fundamental geographic units for resource assessment and management. Examples of Level III ecoregions include the Sonoran Desert, Central Basin and Range, and Colorado Plateau. To simplify, landscapes are large, connected geographic regions that have similar environmental characteristics.

• How do ecoregions relate to the BLM’s local field offices?

• Ecoregions span administrative boundaries and typically encompass areas much larger than those managed by individual BLM field offices. A representative BLM field office manages approximately 4 million acres. The ecoregions under assessment range in size from 11 million to 91 million acres. Ecoregions typically encompass all or portions of land managed by several BLM field offices.

• What are the roles of BLM field offices in a landscape management approach?

• A landscape approach informs and enhances local management, enabling BLM field offices to maintain their central role in managing public lands. Field offices prepare land use plans, authorize land uses, conduct monitoring, and work with partners and stakeholders to develop and implement local management strategies. The broader perspective provided through a landscape approach helps focus and integrate these local management efforts.

• Is a landscape approach something new?

• The BLM’s landscape approach builds on land management concepts and experiences that have been evolving for more than three decades. BLM managers recognized in the early 1980s that western forests and rangelands were beset by widespread wildfires and weed and insect infestations that could no longer be managed effectively by local offices alone or through traditional management practices. Scientists, land managers, and stakeholders have been working since then to understand these wide-ranging impacts, develop shared strategies, and implement collaborative management efforts. These collective experiences and partnerships underpin the BLM’s landscape approach.

• What are the components of the BLM’s landscape approach?

• The BLM’s landscape approach consists of five interconnected components, including:

  1. Rapid Ecoregional Assessments (REAs)
  Ecoregions are landscapes defined by their ecological characteristics. REAs synthesize the best available information about resource conditions and trends within an ecoregion. They highlight and map areas of high ecological value, including important wildlife habitats and corridors, and gauge their potential risks from wildfires, invasive species, energy development, and urban growth. REAs also map areas that have high energy development potential and relatively low ecological value, which could be suited for siting future energy development. In addition, REAs establish landscape-scale baseline ecological data to gauge the effect and effectiveness of future management actions. Since 2010, the BLM has launched 14 REAs in ecoregions across the Western U.S. and Alaska.

  2. Ecoregional Direction
  BLM staff, partner agencies, stakeholders, and tribes will use the results of the REAs to identify key management priorities for the public lands within an ecoregion. The ecoregional direction component is used to identify priority areas for conservation and development, including key areas for conserving wildlife habitats and migration corridors and key areas for potential energy development and transmission. During this component, the BLM develops a blueprint for coordinating and implementing these priorities at the BLM state and field office levels.

  3. Field Implementation
  Field implementation puts the management priorities and strategies identified in ecoregional direction into practice on the ground. This is accomplished by:

  • Amending BLM land use plans, where necessary.

  • Revising and implementing mitigation measures for authorized land uses, including best management practices.

  • Implementing proposed projects and treatments.

  • Performing monitoring.

  • Developing budgets that focus and share management resources.

  4. Monitoring for Adaptive Management
  Consistent, high-quality monitoring information is essential for adaptive management. The BLM is modernizing its monitoring and mapping programs to meet this critical information requirement. The BLM’s Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring (AIM) Strategy is used to standardize data collection and retrieval so information is comparable over time and can be readily accessed and shared. The goal of the AIM Strategy is to provide the information needed to understand resource conditions and trends and to evaluate and refine implementation actions.

  5. Science Integration
  Science informs sound land management decisionmaking. The Department of the Interior’s eight regional climate science centers provide scientific information and tools to help land managers develop and execute management strategies that address the impacts of climate change. In addition, a wide range of science research is conducted regularly on the public lands, in cooperation with universities and state and federal agencies. The landscape approach is designed to more closely link science research with public land management issues and needs and to more fully integrate science information into resource planning and decisionmaking.

• What are the roles of landscape conservation cooperatives (LCCs) in the BLM’s landscape approach?

• LCCs are management/science partnerships composed of private, state, tribal, and federal representatives who work toward a shared vision of landscape health and sustainability. The LCCs facilitate collaboration, provide science information and tools needed for developing resource management strategies, and promote coordinated partnership actions at the landscape and local levels. The LCCs and the BLM’s landscape approach are complementary efforts that continue to become more fully integrated as they progress.