Reviving Arizona's rangelands

Jerry R. Cox; Howard L. Morton; Jimmy T. LaBaume; Kenneth G. Renard

Excerpt

HISTORICAL records show that southeastern Arizona was a grassland before 1880. Today, shrubby plants dominate the egion. From 1880 to 1900, dramatic changes in the composition of vegetation took place along major waterways. Flooding and resulting channelization, plowing of the floodplains, and livestock grazing essentially eliminated the natural process of shallow groundwater recharge. Changes in vegetation on upland range between 1930 and 1980 were gradual but just as destructive. We documented the changes in the region's vegetation between 1880 and 1980, determined why the changes occurred, and determined if the range resource can be reclaimed.

Early descriptions

Spanish explorers and ranchers were active in southeastern Arizona (3, 12, 38), but it is difficult to correlate their descriptions of land with precise areas. Early American explorers, on the other hand, maintained journals describing vegetation and location. Their records provide descriptions of grazing areas and vegetation in southeastern Arizona prior to 1870:

Santa Cruz Basin. “We were off this morning [from Tucson]…and soon entered …

Footnotes

Jerry R. Cox is a range scientist and Howard L. Morton is a supervisory plant physiologist with the Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2000 East Allen Road, Tucson, Arizona 85719. Jimmy T. LaBaume is a consulting range scientist, now residing in Alpine, Texas 79830. Kenneth G. Renard is a research hydraulic engineer with ARS, USDA, 422 East Seventh Street, Tucson. Arizona 85705.
Copyright 1983 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society

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